Alexander McBain, B. A., a prince in penury

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CHAPTER PAGE

I. What is Man ? 9

II. The Widow’s Mite 24

II

THE WIDOW’S MITE ~ EXANDER McBAIN’S father died, leaving nothing to his young wife but the child. He had always scouted the mention of life insurance. “ Can I not just as well put odd bits o’ money in th’ bank, an’ let it be gatherin’ interest there? 99 he had said crabbedly two or three times when the subject was urged upon him. Money cornin’ in when a man’s dead is o’er late to do him much good.” “ An’ wi’ Scotch stubbornness he persevered in his own line o’ thinkin,’ an’ drank up all th’ odd bits o’ money,” said Mrs. McTavish. So the mother soon found it necessary to stop crying over the long white-robed speck of humanity in her arms, and turn her attention to some way of earning his living and her own. Indeed, when she awoke the first morning after her husband’s death, and felt the little presence in the bed near her arm, she knew that she still had something to live for — something to make life worth living. Drawing the warm little head into the hollow

THE WIDOW’S MITE of her shoulder, and the yielding, confiding little form that she felt was dependent upon her — upon her , oh, the glory of it — for everything, nearer to her ; a fierce joy leaped up in her heart, and she cried, “ God, God, I’ll take good care of him! I’ll take good care of him ! I will , I will."

The entire village seemed to take a sympathetic interest in the baby so young left fatherless. The neighbours brought to the young mother lying in her white bed, with the wee babe beside her, presents of caps, flannel petticoats, pinning-blankets, and other indispensable dainties for a baby, and each woman made her wise speech regarding the child.

“ Ye’ll want to discipline yer baby ; be very firm an’ pertickler right from th’ start,” advised Mrs. Brown, shutting firmly her thin lips, “ to teach him rules. Ye have to begin the trainin’ as soon as they’re bom, an’ keep at it ; have a time for him to sleep, an’ a time for him to wake up, an’ a time for him to eat, and a time for him to be washed, and a time for him to be dressed. That’s the on’y way — break him at the beginnin’.”

“ Goodness gracious ! ” said Mrs. Brady, who was present and somehow felt troubled at the thought of all those burdens being put upon a little baby, “ give the child enough to eat. He'll let you know when he

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

is hungry; let him alone for that. He’ll be growed up before you know where you are, an’ be supportin’ you. He’ll throw aside dresses for trousers in no time. J ust you take care av him, an’ give him plenty to eat, an’ yer troubles ’ll soon all be over.”

“ Dearie me, dearie me, a baby ! ” cried Granny Neilson — people were just beginning to call her Granny at that time — caressing the cheek of the new-born with her fingers; “a wee new soul just fresh down frae heaven. Our Saviour himsel’ was once a babe ; as I have just been readin ’, 4 He set his foot on th’ lowliest o’ our paths that we might hae footprints all th’ way ta his home.’ ”

She looked reflectively out through the window as she was speaking, toward the pink sunset in the east ; then her mind came back to the mother and the baby, and she continued:

“ Aye, aye, it’s a great work that’s come ta you, Jessie, th’ work o’ guidin’ a new soul through th’ shoals o’ life. Ye never can do it by yer lone, never . Gie th’ boy ta God, Jessie ; he’s yer Widow’s Mite, an’ that’s th’ on’y thing ta do wi’ Mites. Gie yer Widow’s Mite ta God.”

It was not customary for the men to show much interest in new-born babies, but Peter McKim, being a sort of village wiseacre, felt it incumbent upon him,

THE WIDOW’S MITE 27

as the child’s own father was dead, to call on the widow and advise her in reference to the training of her son.

“ Break his will,” was his injunction. u His will must be broke the first thing, if ye’ve got to spank him into it ; then, as soon as he is able to read, learn him the catechism off by heart; then when he is a little older — be keerful an’ don’t wait too long — put him to cuttin’ wood an’ keep him at it stiddy. Work, work, that’s my receipt for bringin’ up a boy. 4 Satan finds some mischief still fur idle han’s to do,’ as the poet says.”

44 There he lies in his unconscious majesty ruling the house. Have you ever thought about how everything in the house has to bend to a baby ? ” said Mrs. Murray, the Squire’s wife, the afternoon she came over to make her first visit to the new baby, bringing little bunches of her choice lavender to lay in the bureau among his tiny garments. 44 Look at that wee, pure face; everybody is subdued by it.

44 There is a J ewish legend,” she continued, 44 that when Adam was driven from the garden, he asked in an agony of sorrow, 6 What shall I bring back to God if I ever return? ’ And the angel answered, 4 Bring back the face He gave you in the garden, and He will once more let you in.’ Ah, this is our great prob-

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

lem, the battle of life, to keep the face He gave us in the cradle — the kingdom of heaven face.

“ He is a very precious gift to you, Mrs. McBain,” she added, “ and, like all precious things, he must be handled with fear and trembling. There are two ways a baby can be hurt — by starving him for want of love, and by making him selfish by overmuch care. I never look at a baby boy,” she added, “ without thinking of Victor Hugo’s lines:

“ ‘ Opening wide his young soul to life And his mouth to kisses.’

“ We all here in the village,” she said lightly, gathering up her daintily frilled gown, the folds of which always emitted an odour of lavender, preparatory to taking leave, “ must in spite of ourselves have a share in filling his young soul with life — he is going to judge what manner of thing life is by what he sees around him as he is growing day by day, but his mother will have to fill his mouth with kisses — for a few years at least.

“ We all here in the village must have a part in filling his young soul with life ” Part of Mrs.

Murray’s parting sentence seemed to repeat itself as she walked home in the gloaming. She was just at that moment passing the open door of the Mapleton

THE WIDOW’S MITE 29

House; a strain of music floated out, and a voice within her said, “ The barroom presents the only open door in the village which invites growing boys and young men to light, cheer, music, companionship — and whisky.” She shuddered, and said in an audible tone, “ I’m glad my children are not boys.”

Another woman called to see the new young mother and baby, one who was not long a resident of the village. She belonged to some sect which the village had never before known. She was not a Methodist, nor Presbyterian, nor Baptist, nor Episcopalian, and we had meeting houses, and, in fact, very little toleration for any others. When she looked on the little baby, she exclaimed with uplifted hands :

“ Ah, Mrs. McBain, yer baby boy may be a Christ, just as much as any that’s yet been born into the world.”

Politeness kept the women quiet until she left the house — she was a stranger — but as soon as she was gone, Mrs. McTavish, who had installed herself as nurse of the mother and child, said:

“ Jessie, there’s no mistakin’ yours is a fine boy ; it would be hard to find a finer among ordinary babies ; but no cohort of angels came to herald his birth ; no shepherds keepin’ watch over their flock by night

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

rejoiced over it; no wise men came frae th’ East to worship th’ baby, an’ they never did , an’ never shall ’cept at th’ birth o’ one Baby.”

After the callers had gone, and even Mrs. Mc- Tavish had stepped over to her own home for a few moments, the mother lay quietly thinking over what each one had said. Train a little bit of a baby ! She’d do nothing of the kind ; she’d give a wee thing like that all he wanted, in spite of Mrs. Brown’s advice.

She smiled indulgently when she thought of Mrs. Brady’s speech about the trousers, and measured with her hand the length of the little form in the bed beside her.

Then she agreed fully with Mrs. Murray about feeding his mouth with kisses; yes, she would take good care of that part of his nurture.

She smiled again when she thought about the unconscious majesty, and this little mite by her side ruling the house.

She scorned Peter McKim’s interference; break his will indeed! the baby had just as good a right to his little will as anybody.

But among all the many bits of advice which came from the village women, Granny Neilson’s seemed to stand out prominently. “ Gie yer Widow’s Mite ta

THE WIDOW’S MITE

God,” “ Gie yer Widow’s Mite ta God,” kept repeating itself over and over again in her mind like some refrain.

“ No, no,” she said aloud, after a while, drawing closer to her heart the soft, warm bundle in the bed beside her. “ No, no, no, I can’t do that; God gave him to me; Fit train him, I, his mother. I’m the proper person; my precious little Widow’s Mite.”

The widow did not dare to voice her next thoughts, but mentally soliloquised, “ Give him to God and He would go to disciplinin’ him likely ; he would be sickly an’ delicate, an’ like enough he would die before he reached his majority. No, no,” again she said to herself, “ he’s my baby, Fll bring him up. When he’s a man of course I want him to join the church.”

Over in the shanty built on the government land, and occupied by the Gilooly family, another baby made his advent to the world on the same day that Mrs. McBain’s son was born. Very little attention, however, was given to this second baby.

“ I’ve been over to see th’ puir wee thing,” said Mrs. McTavish, “ an’ th’ Squire’s wife has sent over a wee dress ; th’ mother hadn’t a dud scarcely for th’ little creature; an’ th’ Village Helper goes in spells

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

to wash an’ dress him. The stirrin’ wee thing, it seems hard not ta welcome him, but one canna hope for much frae yon shanty. The boys hae started off on th’ track o’ life th’ same day, but it’ll be an uneven race — th’ young Gilooly is handicapped wi’ a bad inheritance.”

Ill

“ THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” soon as the mother was strong enough she opened a shop and took in sewing, every effort prompted by the desire to make a bright future for her boy. Away into the small hours her light was often seen shining; and the neighbours wondered how her frail life endured the burdens she imposed upon it.

Frequently as she sat in the twilight, with her foot on the rocker of the wooden cradle, made specially for the baby by the village carpenter, the wee one, pink and warm, tucked in his soft blankets lying within, there would arise before her mental vision a most fascinating picture. A dreamy look would creep into her still youthful brown eyes, while she gazed as if charmed into the dim recesses of the room, and saw her baby, a grown man, holding some great office, and performing some large work in the world. Sometimes he was a minister standing in the sacred desk, high above the heads of the common people, with gown and bands, in all solemnity dispensing the

S3

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

Word. Sometimes he was a gesticulating politician, pacing a wide rostrum, his burning eloquence winning the applause of hundreds. Sometimes he was a lawyer in court, clearing the falsely accused; and sometimes he was a judge on the bench. She even sighed once because the form of government in the British dominions would not permit of her lad occupying the highest position in the kingdom.

She had been disappointed in the mandhood embodied in her husband; she never acknowledged this disappointment in so many words, but at times, in the press of a heavy day, she would suddenly drop her work, snatch her baby from the cradle, and strain him to her bosom, whispering:

“ I’ll have pride in my son ! — bone o’ my bone, flesh o’ my flesh — he’ll grow up to be a man after my own heart ! I have him in my arms to make of him what I choose ! 99

She gave him his daily bath, handling his small body as if it had been a piece of frail and precious china; she dressed and undressed him with her own hands, jealously guarding him from strangers sharing in this labour of love. The little naked body of her child was a thing of tender beauty in the eyes of the mother, and the very sight of the tiny dresses filled her with emotions unspeakable. Before many weeks his baby lips, beginning to purse themselves into intelligent little “ coos,” and his tender clinging fingers twining around her own, made even stronger appeals to the mother’s heart for more strenuous effort toward providing a competency for the boy’s future.

One day her minister, the Rev. Nathaniel Vickers, dropped into the little home when she was just completing the interesting work of dressing her baby. Seating himself beside the cooing boy, just fresh from his bath, the minister took one of the little pink fingers in his hand and said to the mother, “ Would you take a thousand dollars for this? ” The mother paused a moment as if she could scarcely grasp the awful meaning of what he said, then she answered, “ No.” Touching the two fingers, the minister said, “Would you take two thousand dollars for these?” Almost indignantly the mother answered again, “ No.” Then clasping in his the chubby, tender little hand, he said, “ Would you take ten thousand dollars for this?” Unhesitatingly the answer again was, “ No.” “ Your baby, then,” said the minister, “ is; worth ten thousand dollars to you ; you’re quite a rich woman.”

After the minister had gone the young mother gathered her child to her bosom and cried in an

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

ecstasy of joy, while the tears brimmed her eyes, “ Ah, he might have said ten million dollars and not have exaggerated! Not a mite!”

She fashioned his small garments, her needle keeping time to a music in her heart; she embroidered dainty scallops for soft round throat and wrists; she knitted stockings for rose-leaf feet, and while she wrought she thought of the gentle Judean woman, the mother of a Saviour, and she whispered in her heart, 44 She, too, was the mother of a baby boy.”

As soon as the length of the boy’s hair would permit, one of her pastimes was to brush it into a curl on the top of his small head ; then holding him at arms’ length, she would exclaim with her heart in her voice :

“ Mother’s wee man ! Mother’s wee man ! ”

Then she would usually repeat some foolish little lines that ended in this couplet:

“ 4 Look in his face, and guess if you can.

Why mother is proud of her little man.’ ”

After this she would hurriedly kiss his soft cheek, place him on a mat on the floor, with a teaspoon or a rattlebox, or something with which he could not hurt himself, and snatch up her sewing, which she felt had been neglected too long.

When the sewing, however, was rolled away for the night, and the lamp was lighted, and the widow had shut all doors against the outside world, her great joy was to seat herself in her rocking-chair, with her little baby clasped in her arms, and sing to him some of the old Scotch songs she had heard her mother sing. She was very proud of her Scotch ancestry, and she was determined that her son should be early imbued with a knowledge and spirit of the same. The first year of his life, if you had been allowed within the sacred precincts of that sitting-room, you would have heard her lilting voice, with the penetrating quality that is peculiar to Scotch voices, singing:

“ ‘ Will ye no fa’ asleep the night.

Ye restless little loon?

The sun has lang been oot o’ sicht,

An’ gloamin’s darkin’ doon.

There’s claes to mend, the hoose to clean —

The nicht I’ll no get through;

For oh, ye winna close your een —

Ye wee croodlin’ doo.

“Spurrin’ wi’ yer restless feet,

My very legs are sair;

Clautin* wi’ yer buffie hands,

Towslin’ mammy’s hair.

I’ve gi’en ye meat wi’ sugar sweet;

Your little crappie’s fou;

Ye wee croodlin’ doo.

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

“ Twistin’ round and round again,

Warsling’ aff my lap.

And pussy on the hearthstane.

As sound as ony tap —

Dicky birdin’ gaen to rest,

A’ asleep but you;

Nestle into mammy’s breast.

Ye wee croodlin’ doo.

“Guid be praised, the battle’s by.

And sleep has won at last!

How still the puddlin’ feetie lie.

The buffie hands at rest!

And safely fa’s the silken fringe Aboon thy een o’ blue —

Blessin’s on my bonnie bairn.

Me wee croodlin’ doo.’ ”

There was something soothing in both words and music ; the baby was always asleep when the song was finished.

Only on one occasion did the widow vary the * ong ; on Christmas night she sang:

“ 4 A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem ;

The wise men came to welcome him; a star stood o’er the gable;

An’ there they saw the King o’ kings, no longer thronged wi’ angel wings.

But croodlin’ like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.’”

“ THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ”

“ Ah, yes,” she said, hugging her baby when she had finished the verse, “ our Saviour himself was a wee croodlin’ doo, an’ na doot Mary had to sing him to sleep with some bit song — Hebrew in place o’ Scotch ; but all the same it would be a song o’ her own people. Yes, yes, in a mother’s arms the wee baby Christ lay, from a mother He learned to lisp His first word. Out on the fields of Nazareth she saw Him play. Ah, ah, she was like other mothers who love.”

Shortly after the boy’s hair was long enough to comb into a curl on the top of his head, arrangements were made for his christening. The village babies were usually christened much younger, but the widow would not have her baby undergo this time-honoured ceremony until she could afford what she considered a suitable frock — she could not exactly call it a christening robe , for robes were usually long, and the baby by this time was wearing short skirts some months. In the course of time a new short frock, trimmed, as befitted the momentous occasion for which it was intended, with finer embroidery than had yet adorned his small person, occupied his mother’s spare moments for weeks, not to say months, in the making. A tiny pair of red shoes, intended to peep cunningly from beneath the short frock, were carefully selected from the shoe stock of the village general store.

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

When everything was in readiness, the widow one afternoon carried the baby over to leave him in care of Mrs. McTavish while she went out to invite the elders of the church and the minister to the christening.

“ Oh, Agnes,” she said as she kissed the baby and placed him for an hour in her neighbour’s keeping, “ because of his dear little golden head, if ye’ll believe me, I notice all th’ wee heads I see on the street, an’ everywhere else, an’ they all look beautiful to me. If I had my way I’d paint a halo ’round every baby’s head, same as some o’ the great artists put ’round the head o’ our Saviour. Aren’t they all sacred, the darlin’s, with their wee white saintly faces? I cannot keep the tears back, Agnes, when I look into babies’ eyes, thinkin’ o’ my own baby’s two wide earnest eyes that seem at times to look me through and through.”

“ I ken fine how ye feel,” returned Mrs. McTavish. “ Haven’t I owned a baby o’ ma own in ma time? ”

The widow was a little woman, with one of those wiry Scotch figures that never grow stout, and when she was dressed in her black merino Sunday gown, and black bonnet with the white border, and long clinging widow’s veil, she presented a sightly picture to the men whom she was honouring. She went to each with the carefully prepared little speech:

“ I would be very pleased to have ye take tea with me the cornin’ Friday evenin’, the occasion o’ my boy’s christenin’.”

Cakes, preserves and pickles of every variety were prepared for the supper which was to grace the occasion. Mrs. McTavish’s armchair and silver cake-basket, along with another neighbour’s silver spoons, were borrowed. Not but the widow had silver spoons, that had once belonged to her grandmother, of her own, and a cake-basket of her own, but she liked to look affluent on this evening of evenings.

Mrs. McTavish was invited to keep the widow in countenance among the men, and to assist in their entertainment.

When the minister and the elders, each man dressed in his best Sunday suit, were all assembled in the little parlour, Mrs. McTavish carried in the silver bowl, a rare old piece of silverware brought from Scotland, — an heirloom in the family for many generations, and considered invaluable — filled with water, while the mother followed with the babe. The minister rose to his feet, took the white-f rocked, red-shoed baby into his capacious arms, dipped his large fingers into the water in the silver bowl, dropped some of it on the

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

little unconscious head, and calling him his maternal grandfather’s name, he said in the slow and solemn tones of a follower of Knox, “ Alexander, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” while the mother looked on with glistening eyes and heightened colour, forgetting all the trouble of her life in the joy that she was the mother of a man child.

That night after the minister and elders had left the house, the two women who had entertained them sat down to talk over the events of the evening; the baby having been tucked away in his trundle bed an hour before.

“ My, Agnes,” said the widow, her whole face vivified by the night’s excitement, causing her to look fully ten years younger, “ did you notice how fine the wee boy acted in the minister’s arms? — like a wee angel. His little face was as serious and solemn as if he knew all about what was goin’ on — an’ what it meant — the darlin’. An’ perhaps he did, who knows ? Perhaps he did. The wee souls fresh from God may know more than we worldly-wise people ken anything about. And did you see, Agnes, how fine he stuck out his wee feet and showed off the pretty red shoes to perfection; weren’t they beauties? And the embroidery on his frock — I could most see the rosebuds

“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ”

as if they were growin’ on the bush, and the veins in the rose leaves. I felt well repaid by the appearance of that frock for every stitch I took in its makin’.

“ Yes, as you say, Agnes, everything went off well ; the supper was good, an’ all the men an’ the minister ate hearty; I could not be better pleased. But of course it was just as it ought to be at the christenin’ of my son.”

“ Ah,” said Mrs. McTavish boastfully, when talking afterward to the neighbours, “ it might ha’ been a young prince that was bein’ christened, th’ way he was covered wi’ embroideries — all his own mother’s needlework. An’ th’ supper that that woman spread for th’ minister an’ th’ elders — th’ pies an’ cakes, th’ fine dishes an’ silver — some of it borrowed, of course — I don’t see how any rich woman could ha’ had more. Dear, dear, it was a releegious exercise, an’ I’m hopin’ it was well pleasin’ in th’ eyes o’ th’ Lord,” she added, as if she felt some compunction for dwelling at such length on the earthly side of it.

At a late hour on the evening of the christening, after the two women had washed the china and polished the silver, the mother placed the silver bowl on a bracket which was fastened in a conspicuous place on the parlour wall between the windows. Beside the bowl she put the little red shoes.

ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A.

“ They’re for the laddie when he’s a man,” she said to Mrs. McTavish, “ to keep his heart tender, and remind him of this occasion in his life. He’ll be awful proud of them then.”

Mrs. McTavish frequently told that in after years when the boy was old enough to understand; the proud mother often related the whole story of that christening, enlarging on the priceless value of the silver bowl, which belonged to her grandmother’s grandmother ; and she would always conclude by saying :

“ Many generations have been christened out of that bowl, and it shall go down to you, Alexander, and to your children’s children after you.”

“ I was terrible well pleased ta hear that ye had publicly gi’en yer baby ta God in baptism, Jessie,” said Granny Neilson the first time she met the widow after Sandy’s christening.

The widow started — she had not thought of the ceremony in that way; she had her baby christened because all the church people christened their babies, and she thought it the proper thing to do.

66 1 hope,” she mused as Granny Neilson walked away, “ that he won’t grow delicate an’ sickly now.” Indeed, with that fear in her heart, she watched him closely for several months afterward.

“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ”

The little baby over in the shanty on the government land was never christened. His grandfather, old Bill Gilooly, had died when the child was but a few weeks old, and as a mark of ancestral respect the baby’s mother had given him the name “ Bill.” William Henry Gilooly was the whole of the name, but nobody ever had time to say it all.

IV

HE next event in the boy’s life, and therefore in his mother’s, was the taking of his first step alone. Of all these recurring events she kept a record on the flyleaf at the back of the “ family Bible,” the same in which the boy’s birth was registered. The following were some of the entries:

“ Feb. 6 — The dear can reach out for things, and touch his own wee toes.”

“ March 3 — The laddie cut his first wee tooth.”

“ June 5 — My boy’s christening day — I’ve called him Alexander, after his grandfather.”

“ Aug. 10 — He can play peek-a-boo round the back of a chair.”

“ Aug. 15 — Alexander took his first steps alone.”

44 Aug. 18 — He keeked at me to-day from behind his pinny.”

“ Sept. 1 — The pet spoke his first word.”

Only on one occasion, after the event of his christening, did he wear the elaborate white frock and the red shoes ; that was when a “ photograph car ” passed

4*6 through that vicinity, and stopped for a week in the village. Then the baby was arrayed again, just as when the minister had taken him in his arms to sprinkle him with the baptismal water, and carried down street to the “ photograph car ” to have his “ likeness 55 taken.

A new entry was made on the flyleaf of the family Bible.

“ Aug. 30 — The pretty boy had his likeness taken to-day. He wore his christening frock and shoes.”

Very soon after he began to toddle around the village seemed to naturally fall into the habit of calling him “ Sandy 99 ; because he was Scotch, and because his father, and his grandfather, and his great grandfather had been called “ Sandy.” He was a “ promisin’ little chap,” they all said who remembered his childhood; an interesting child with timid blue eyes, and light hair like silken floss.