The story of the Christmas ship

Front matter

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CHAPTER I The Vision Splendid

IT CAME about very suddenly.

I was sitting in my room one hot summer afternoon, looking at the pale blue wall paper and listening to the whirl of the electric fan.

It was the 27th of August. I heard the clock strike four in the drawing room below. How hot it was! How stifiingly, unbearably hot!

It was very quiet. The stillness was delightful. My house stood on such a steep hill, we seldom heard even automobiles.

Suddenly, from thinking gratefully of the peace in which I lived, my thoughts flew without warning to the trenches of Europe, and instantly war in all its horrors took possession of my soul.

My imagination is at once my best friend and my deadliest enemy. It obsesses me and wrecks my peace for hours at a time, causing me to live the lives of people I never have seen and never expect to see; but their sufferings are mine while the dream lasts.

And so I began to experience every horror I had read about or imagined. I was in those sun-baked, water-logged trenches. I was in that bodily suffering and that mental anguish of those helpless men, driven out to meet death as best they might — only avoid it they might not.

I wondered how I would feel if I knew I was going to be killed — and at any moment!

I know now. I went through it all — the vicarious anguish for the helpless ones left behind. I pictured the mental suffering of those men at the front, forced to leave their loved ones to starve — to die — or worse ; the frantic prayers going up from the anxious husbands and fathers; the sobbing prayers from the helpless women left behind; the lisping prayers of believing children, praying for fathers to come home, who even then were lying stark and cold, with sightless eyes and stiffening limbs. Oh, the prayers of the children! Taught to believe that whatsoever they prayed for in faith, those things would God give in answer to their prayers !

Thousands of children were even at that very hour praying for fathers and mothers who had been torn from them and whom they would never see again. Yet the lisping prayers would go on, and on, and on!

I thought of frightened babies stumbling after strange forms, thinking every woman was the lost mother they sought; perhaps alone in a forest at night — cold, hungry, and meeting God knows what fate.

And these thoughts obsessed me until I sprang up with clenched hands and streaming eyes, crying out to an empty room: "Oh, God! God! God! What can I do to help those helpless ones ? What can I do ? I must do something ! I must ! I must! I must think of a way! Surely there must be a way to reach them — to reach them all, if I can only think of it! Those women and children must be taken care of! And I must do it!"

I walked the floor, blinded by my tears. I forgot the heat — I forgot everything except that I must think of a way. The burden was laid on my heart in that very hour, and has never lifted since — the burden of the hapless orphans of the war!

I pictured the flight of summer and the coming of winter. Every one said the war would last a year. Think, then, of the bitter cold of those north countries where the fighting was going on! It was hard enough to survive, when men worked continuously to keep the fire plenished and the larder full.

Now what would they do?

And Christmas was coming! In a flash which was almost blinding, I saw the desolate Christmas of war-torn Europe!

Not a smile on the face of any child in the length and breadth of that devastated land!

How I wished that I could send all Europe a Christmas!

The idea had begun to dawn.

I remember stopping in my frantic walking up and down and looking out of my west window.

The sun was sinking, and a rosy brightness was over everything. I do not remember objects. I only remember staring into that western glory and thinking it symbolic.

Light was here ! Light was there — and for them !

How could we send a Christmas to Europe?

Nothing that grown-ups could do would be permitted a neutral nation. Still there was a way!

We must be careful — oh, so careful — to do nothing to draw our peaceful cotmtry into the strife. But there must be a way!

How could America send Europe her Christmas?

The children must be remembered — the poor little kiddies whose fathers would never come home any more. We must do for them what their daddies would do if they had lived. America must take the place of dead fathers to living orphans of the war.

How different a fate theirs from that of our protected and sheltered little ones, who were in no danger whatsoever and who were sure of a glorious Christmas! How eagerly would our children share their Christmas with their little cousins across the water, if they could!

How gladly they would even give up their own Christmas to the little war orphans, if only —

Well — why not?

If only there were a way of getting the things over to —

A ship! I cried the words aloud! Then I stood still, and the Vision came.

The blue walls of my room seemed to fall away and melt into the blue of heaven, and then, under full sail of purple and gold, I saw the Christmas Ship come sailing, and flying from her staff was the beautiful flag of the Christmas Ship — with its white ground for Peace, its golden star of Hope, and its motto the single word — "Inasmuch!" I saw the gallant journey the

Christmas Ship would make, being convoyed safely by blackbrowed warrior ships past submarine mines, and with every battleship forgetting its ominous mission for one moment while it dipped its flag to the peaceful white pennant of the Children's Christmas Ship and signaled her "Godspeed!"

It was the Vision Splendid.

The work of children of our land for orphans of the war !

Indeed, the whole ship seemed formed of children's faces, and children's outstretched hands, and children's beating hearts, and the ocean the ship sailed on turned, under its silver prow, from an ocean of tears to an ocean of smiles.

And millions of happy children were on one shore — those whose generous hearts and open hands had filled the hold of the gallant, dazzling ship; while on the farther shore were the eager, hapless hordes of orphans and widows, whose straining eyes and haggard cheeks took on new expressions of incredulity, then of hope, then of glad certainty, as the ship sailed on and on !

I saw the faces of stern war lords relax as the children's ship sailed into their ken. I saw the faces of the men in battle array — in trenches, in hospitals, on the firing line — grow tremulous with feeling, as the thought that their loved ones were being remembered relieved their sickening anxiety.

I saw the faces of myriads of expectant mothers smooth into content as news came that their needs were being met.

I saw the grim lines in kings' and commanders' faces relax somewhat of their sternness when they heard the astounding news that the children of America were sending a shipload of Christmas cheer to the women and children of every nation engaged in war.

I saw how queens would smile and how great nobles and lords and ladies would give their best endeavor to seeing that the gifts reached those for whom they were intended.

I saw the great army of the Red Cross smiling as they, too, lent their aid to the Christmas Ship.

I saw the tremulous faces of the old people on this shore and on that, those hapless derelicts on the ocean of life. How glad and grateful they would be for something to do !

Then my thoughts raced to the part we in America would play.

The word "raced" is not enough. Thoughts came so fast, they came in pictures.

I thought of writing an appeal to every child in the United States to play Santa Claus to some child in war-torn Europe.

It would have to be printed by some great magazine or newspaper. I must have a daily paper, so that I could tell the children every day just what to do.

In New York?

Ye-es, if —

How about Chicago?

I know Chicago. I was born there. I know her people. I know the generosity of her spirit. I know the state of Illinois, with its lofty ideals and splendid capacity for doing big things in a big way.

The more I thought of it, the more sure I was that I wanted to bring this beautiful idea, this glorious opportunity for the children of America to make history, back to my native city.

I thought of how the churches and Sunday schools would rush to help — of the public schools.

Three names came into my mind in the very first of the plan — Elizabeth Harrison, president of the Kindergarten College — I knew how she would approve; Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, Superintendent of Schools, and Lord Northcliffe, with his great string of forty-five British newspapers — I saw in a flash of intuition how he would cooperate with so humane a plan.

An odd combination of names, wasn't it? Yet I am telling the story just as it occurred.

I knew President Wilson would give us a ship. I knew the railroads and express companies would carry the gifts free. I knew that not a facility which could be utilized would be withheld by the grand and glorious Americans who make this country of ours the most wonderful land in the world.

I trusted the children. I knew if I asked them to load a ship with Christmas toys for the little orphans of the war I would present an idea which would capture the imagination of every child who heard the plan.

That was the first requisite — to get the children interested!

The next thing would be to capture the grown-ups, for without them the children could do little.

I had to think about that, for all my life I have seen godly- Christian women working themselves to death in church fairs hardly paying expenses, and never counting in the doctors' bills which too often came as a sorrowful aftermath.

This must be an automatic, self-feeding, perpetual-motion affair, so fascinating that we couldn't keep people from giving!

Ah, that was it ! I had it at last.

Tell the grown-ups they couldn't give! Tell them this was the work of the children for children — and the result would be that the grown-ups would humbly ask if they might not be permitted to give!

I tried it — you remember, don't you? And it worked to a charm !

Then, when everybody would be trying to give, I again trusted the children. I knew they would be the first to see that toys were needed least of all — that warm clothing was the first necessity.

That also worked to a charm. The children themselves stopped contributing toys and asked me, in thousands of quaintly worded letters, if they could not give hoods and mittens.

I could n't help thinking what a parents' friend the Christmas Ship would prove, for I intended to have the children earn the money themselves, and I knew that all the things parents had been vainly trying to bribe their children to do, without results, would now be done with a rush. I could fairly see the errands run, the kindling split, the eggs gathered, the lawns trimmed, the paths swept, the dishes washed, the furnaces tended, and the eagerness to serve would be one of the rewards!

I could scarcely wait to begin to tell them how to go to work.

While all these plans were rushing pell-mell through my mind, I thought of the Chicago Herald — a paper made up of three or four papers which had failed, and now one of Chicago's conspicuous dailies.

The editor knew I wanted to come back to Chicago to live, so I wrote him a letter telling him about the Christmas Ship, and the next day I got a telegram saying, "Can you get on train and talk over suggestion with me?"

I knew from that that the plan had landed — that the first man to whom I had offered the Christmas Ship would take it up.

I was in the act of darning a black silk stocking when that telegram came, and I must have been so excited that I carefully put it in my desk with the telegram, for when, two weeks later, I was unpacking my household goods in Chicago, I pricked my finger on the darning needle in that same silk stocking, which I found coyly tucked among bills, letters, and telegrams in the middle drawer of my writing desk!

Of course I telegraphed the family that I had been sent for, and in the forty-eight hours which necessarily elapsed before I had my first interview with the editor I talked at a gallop to everybody who would listen.

The train was crowded, and I had to share my seat in the Pullman with a man from Oklahoma.

I tried the Christmas Ship on him, and before I got off the train at Chicago he had gallantly offered to organize his state for the work!

Then I tried it on the family. I outlined everything which would happen. They sat looking at me as if they thought the madness which had always threatened me had descended at last, for I spoke of the ship as a certainty.

My father kept saying: "Well, I hope it will turn out as you say. I hope these things will all come true."

I got to Chicago at night and the next day at three o'clock I had my first talk with the editor.

His first words were these:

"How long have you been thinking of this Christmas Ship, Miss Bell?"

"Since last Thursday at four o'clock in the afternoon."

"You had twenty-four hours the start of me," he said. "I haven't been able to sleep since your letter came. It's the biggest thing I ever heard of in my life! How did you come to think of it?"

"I have a strange feeling about this Christmas Ship," I answered. "When I am dead, the books I have written will probably be forgotten, but I want the people of America to remember me as the author of something more far-reaching than books — something which dried the tears of little children and brought smiles to the faces of despairing mothers. You mayhave all the credit of helping to carry out the plan, but I want my country to remember me as the author of the Christmas Ship idea." Then I added, "If you take it up, you will be making history."

His eyes snapped.

* ' I wonder if you know how big it is ?" he exclaimed suddenly.

"I most certainly do," I answered him. "I believe there is not a possibility to it an3rwhere that I have not thought of. It is a living sermon, preached in moving pictures from the greatest of all texts ever written — 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.' That is the motto for the Christmas Ship!"

"Great!" he exclaimed. "That will catch 'em! Now go ahead and explain. Tell me all you've thought out."

So then the wildfire growth of the Christmas Ship idea which astonished a world as it was spread before the public daily in the columns of two hundred of the largest newspapers of the United States, I spread in prophecy before the Herald editor's eyes that August afternoon. I outlined the way the world would receive it.

I said that the Americans were in a state of mind to receive a plan such as this with positive gratitude. They yearned to help, but had no way. The Christmas Ship would make their sympathy articulate.

"You, being a man," I said, "cannot possibly see the far-reaching effects of this plan as I see them. I am a woman; I have thought of things like these for years. I know how women and children suffer and feel. This Christmas Ship will go so deep down into the hearts of people, that for years after the presents have been distributed, we in America will feel the effects of their gratitude. It will open the eyes of the world to the true America.

It will explain our policy in Cuba and Mexico. Diplomatists now think we are harmless lunatics. After the Christmas Ship has awakened the people, they will say, 'This nation has a heart. Possibly it also has a conscience.' Then they may begin to understand our soldiers' and sailors' behavior to their enemies. They may even understand our national ideals. Nothing that the world has ever done will have such an international effect as the sailing of the Christmas Ship. In years to come you may remember this prophecy of mine, made on August 31, 1914."

I told him that news of our plan would circle the globe in a month, and that it would put the name of the Chicago Herald on the lips of every civilized person in the world inside of a year.

I even said: "Lord Kitchener, himself, will take official notice of the arrival of the Christmas Ship. And queens and empresses will write us letters of thanks."

The editor did not once say me nay. He seemed to take in every detail.

"How would you start it?" he asked.

"I will write an appeal to the children, which will take up a whole front page. I want you to use double columns and special type. I will ask them if they don't want to play Santa Claus to the poor little children whose fathers will never come home any more. I will begin by calling their attention to the fact — too often overlooked — that our fathers come home every night. It is a glad hour — the time when daddy comes home; and it will touch their sympathies to think that there will be a million orphans between now and Christmas, who will never see that joyful home-coming of their dearly loved fathers.

"Then I will tell them what they can do — mention what they can give. I will visualize the Santa Claus trip for them, make them see the reindeer sleigh, feel the reins in their hands, see the lanes of rural England, the vineyards of France, the stubble fields of Belgium, the mysterious depths of the Black Forest, and the snow-clad steppes of Russia, through which they will drive!

"Having thus captured the children's minds," I went on, "the grown-ups will come in of their accord, for, to paraphrase —

'Wherever the children are, there will the parents be gathered together.' "

The editor smiled.

"And what this plan will do for us, personally and nationally, cannot, at this time, be estimated," I said. "I believe with all my soul that the Christmas Ship, bearing the love of a nation's children to the orphans of every warring country, will so soften hard hearts that it may be the greatest factor in making President Wilson the Arbiter of Peace when the time comes. His good offices have been refused once. The Christmas Ship may bring about a reconsideration of that refusal. It will be the greatest peace factor any nation has ever put forth. The very flag I designed to fly at her masthead is symbolic of the whole beautiful idea — a white ground for Peace, the single golden star of Hope, and the motto in dark blue of 'Inasmuch! ' "

The editor sat crouched forward in his chair, his hand playing nervously with a glass paperweight.

"But, please," I begged, almost reading his thoughts, "try to keep the Christmas Ship in mind as an ideal of the American people, and do not call it an advertisement of the Herald, even in your own mind."

He thrust his lips out.

"We Americans are sentimental idealists," I said, "in spite of being the most commercial people in the world. We are children at heart, and we still as a nation believe in Santa Claus! You, being an editor, can't help seeing the Christmas Ship as an advertising scheme for your paper; but I see it as a world-wide philanthropy — an opportunity for the children of the Stars and Stripes to make history. You are thinking of your circulation and your advertising — you see it from the promoter's point of view. But don't lose sight of the fact that to the outside world it is an intensely humane work of love."

He nodded his head.

"Parents," I went on, "will see in the Christmas Ship a new and fascinating way to teach their children lessons of vital importance — such as the joy of giving, the benefits of self-denial, the sweetness of sympathy, and the dramatic contrast

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS SHIP ii

between the horrors of war and the blessedness of peace. And the Christmas Ship will one day be recognized as a world-wide peace movement, which will bear fruit — no one can tell how soon — but ultimately, without a doubt. For I believe, when it is actually known that the Christmas Ship has arrived and is unloading gifts on the other side, that even soldiers on the firing line will have no stomach for war while the Christmas Ship is in their minds."

The editor nodded again.

"And think how school teachers will seize upon the lessons it teaches — more vital than any to be found in books, while clergymen, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will find texts galore in its significance — especially in emphasizing peace, for they serve the Prince of Peace.

* ' Oh, I can promise you that you will find yourself in exalted company, for the noblest men and women in the land will flock to our standard — educators, clergymen, teachers, thinkers, philosophers, altruists — all the mighty ones of earth, while sacrifices will be made by the poor, and letters will be written telling of self-denial which will be human documents worthy of being preserved in amber. The thought of our little American children turning from selfish plans for their own Christmas to sacrifice toys most dear to them, in order to render less sad the Christmas of a little child across, the seas whose father will never come he iie again, will wring the hearts of our nation — of all nations — as they have never been wrung before. So go softly! For you will be treading on human hearts!"

"You sit down and write that out," said the editor, his eyes snapping, "and I will take it to-morrow to Washington and read it to the President. Write me a complete scenario of your plan, just as you have explained it to me; use just as nearly as possible the language you have used, for if you can get me, you can get anybody!"

He got up and paced the floor excitedly.

" It 's the biggest feat that ever was put over by a newspaper in the history of journalism!" he exclaimed. "It will make everybody connected with it famous ! And because you brought it to me, I will feature you as you never were featured in your life. I will syndicate all your articles in every paper that cooperates. Now go home and write the appeal to the children to play Santa Claus. Bring in the Black Forest and that text from the Bible — 'Inasmuch' — and the desolation over there — just as you pictured it to me. You know how! And let me have it. I leave for Washington to-morrow!"

How I got home I don't know.

As there are no flying machines taking passengers, I must have walked east on Washington Street. I hope I did not run over anybody, for I cannot remember that my feet touched the pavement at all. I trod on air and breathed pure ozone.

When I got home I electrified the family by repeating the conversation, word for word. It seemed to have been photographed on my brain so that as I write these lines and read them aloud to the family (I always try things on them — poor, longsuffering, patient creatures!) they look at each other and nod their heads and say : "I remember she told us all this, the first evening when she came home!"

And dear me! How excited we were! We talked all at once. We are used to that. We have done it so much, we can hear all that everybody else says, and at the same time get a fair idea of what we are saying ourselves.

We told each other what would happen, and afterwards it all did. We would sit silent a moment, imaginations all a-leap into the future, and then suddenly everybody would begin to speak at once. Then we'd laugh, and say how wonderful it all was.

The Ship of my Dreams was to be a Ship of Reahty! The joy of it !

"I see only one possible objection," said my sister, "which other papers will seize upon, and that is that we should care for our own poor, too!"

I almost stuttered in my eagerness.

"Yes, I've thought of that! But don't you know human nature well enough to see what will happen? If the Herald takes this up, what will the other papers do? Sit down and write up war news — with the Herald printing heart throbs? No! Every paper will get up some kind of a similar charity, and most of them will be for our own ! Can't you see it ? Why, I can even read the editorials from here — each with a little side wollop at the Herald for remembering the orphans across the ocean while our own poor are weeping at our very gates!"

The family began to laugh.

"Furthermore," I went on, "all people need in a crisis is a leader. The moment this big, moving picture is flung on the screen for all America to see, the public heart will begin to beat. And I believe you will see such an outpouring of practical charity for our own poor and unfortunate — from churches, societies, and individuals — that this year all the neglected of the earth will be cared for as never before in the history of the world. I can see it!"

There was silence for a moment.

"Well," said my sister, "if I were in your place I wouldn't ask an5rthing more than the way you will feel inside, on Christmas Day, if this all comes true and, skeptic that I am on most things, I believe it will! And all that joy will have come to millions because you first thought of the Christmas Ship!"

Tears came into my eyes — I was near the danger point.

"Go to bed, everybody, do," I said, suddenly, "and let me get to work! I can't write a line if anybody is awake."

At this cordial invitation of mine, they all stood up.

"Yes, yes!" said my father. "You must work. Well, I'll go. But I'll tell you one thing. I'm glad you took it to the Herald. I believe that man will be perfectly honest with you and will keep every one of his promises."

" 'Course he will ! " I responded, shooing him gently but firmly toward the door.

As the door closed behind him, my mother turned back.

"I bless the Christmas Ship for one thing," she said softly. "It has brought you back home to live!"

Aren't mothers wonderful?

CHAPTER II My Appeal to the Children of America

I SAT up half the night writing.

The next day I took my articles — I wrote two — down to the editor.

He was all smiles and cordiality, and began at once to question me again as to my plans for transporting the gifts and as to the distributing facilities on the other side.

"In England Queen Mary is at the head of the Red Cross. We can distribute through them. Some queens set different fashions, but Queen Mary leads in good works. She visits the wounded every day, and by her example she makes goodness fashionable. Queens are so wonderful! Think what influence they have! If she even so much as speaks her gratitude for the Christmas Ship, all England will loyally follow in her lead."

"But how about Germany?" he asked.

It is funny to look back on these conversations, for here sat this big man, knowing more of politics and the war and economics and everything in one minute than I knew in a year, yet actually questioning me seriously as to how things would happen which, I frankly explained, I had only seen in a vision.

"Will Germany let Belgium have her share?" he questioned.

Now, just between ourselves, I did not know how the war was going! Ever since I had gone through the agony of that afternoon when I actually saw battle fields, I had fixed my mind wholly on the Christmas Ship and had resolutely skipped war news in the papers.