NATIONAL SERVICE--ONE WAY
There are some phrases in our conversations now that are used so often that they seem to be in some danger of losing their meaning. The snap goes out of them by too much handling, like an elastic band which has been stretched too far. One of these is "national service."
If the work of the soldier, who leaves home, position, and safety behind him, and goes forth to meet hardship and danger, receiving as recompense one dollar and ten cents per day, is taken as the standard of comparison, the question of national service becomes very simple, indeed, for there is but one cla.s.s, and no other that is even distantly related to it, but if national service is taken to mean the doing of something for our country"s good which we would not feel it our duty to do but for the emergencies created by the war, then there are many ways in which the sincere citizen may serve.
The Abilene Valley School was closed all last year, and weeds are growing in the garden in which the year before flowers and vegetables, scarlet runners and cabbages, poppies and carrots, had mingled in wild profusion. The art-muslin curtains are draggled and yellow, and some of the windows, by that strange fate which overtakes the windows in unoccupied houses, are broken.
The school was not closed for lack of children. Not at all. Peter Rogowski, who lives a mile east, has seven children of school-age himself, from bright-eyed Polly aged fourteen to Olga aged six, and Mr. Rogowski is merely one of the neighbors in this growing settlement, where large families are still to be found. There are twenty-four children of school-age in the district, and in 1915, when Mr. Ellis taught there, the average attendance was nineteen. At the end of the term Mr. Ellis, who was a university student, abandoned his studies and took his place in the ranks of the Army Medical Corps, and is now nursing wounded men in France. He said that it would be easy to find some one else to take the school. He was thinking of the droves of teachers who had attended the Normal with him. There seemed to be no end of them, but apparently there was, for in the year that followed there were more than one hundred and fifty schools closed because no teacher could be found.
After waiting a whole year for a teacher to come, Polly Rogowski, as the spring of 1917 opened, declared her intention of going to Edmonton to find work and go to school. Polly"s mother upheld her in this determination, and together they sc.r.a.ped up enough money to pay her railway fare, and board for one week, although it took all that they had been putting away to get Mrs. Rogowski"s teeth fixed. But Polly"s mother knew that when her Polly began to teach there would be money and plenty for things like that, and anyway they had not ached so bad for a while.
The city, even Edmonton, is a fearsome place for a fourteen-year-old girl who has no friends, seven dollars in money, and only an intense desire for an education to guide her through its devious ways. But the first night that Polly was away, her mother said an extra prayer before the Blessed Virgin, who, being a mother herself, would understand how much a young girl in a big city needs special care.
It was a cold, dark day when Polly with her small pack arrived at the C.N.R. Station, and looked around her. Surely no crusader going forth to restore the tomb of his Lord ever showed more courage than black-eyed Polly when she set forth on this lonely pilgrimage to find learning. She had heard of the danger of picking up with strangers, and the awful barred windows behind which young girls languished and died, and so refused to answer when the Travelers" Aid of the Y.W.C.A.
in friendliest tones asked if she might help her.
Polly was not to be deceived by friendly tones. The friendly ones were the worst! She held her head high and walked straight ahead, just as if she knew where she was going. Polly had a plan of action. She was going to walk on and on until she came to a house marked in big letters "BOARDING-HOUSE," and she would go in there and tell the lady that she wanted to get a room for one day, and then she would leave her bundle and go out and find a school and see the teacher. Teachers were all good men and would help you! Then she would find a place where they wanted a girl to mind a baby or wash dishes, or maybe milk a cow; and perhaps she would have a bed all to herself. City houses were so big and had so many rooms, and she had heard that in some of the beds only one person slept! Having her programme so well laid out, it is no wonder that she refused to confide in the blue serge lady who spoke to her.
Polly set off at a quick pace, looking straight ahead of her across the corner of the station yard, following the crowd. The Travelers"
Aid followed close behind, determined to keep a close watch on the independent little Russian girl.
At the corner of First and Jasper, Polly stopped confused. A great crowd stood around the bulletin board and excitedly read the news of the Russian revolution; automobiles honked their horns, and street-cars clanged and newsboys shouted, and more people than Polly had ever seen before surged by her. For the first time Polly"s stout heart failed her. She had not thought it would be quite like this!
Turning round, she was glad to see the woman who had spoken to her at the station. In this great bustling, pushing throng she seemed like an old friend.
"Do you know where I could find a boarding-house?" asked Polly breathlessly.
The Travelers" Aid took her by the hand and piloted her safely across the street; and when the street-car had clanged by and she could be heard, she told Polly that she would take her to a boarding-house where she would be quite safe.
Polly stopped and asked her what was the name of the place.
"Y.W.C.A.," said the Aid, smiling.
Polly gave a sigh of relief. "I know what that is," she said. "Mr.
Ellis said that was the place to go when you go to a city. Will you let me stay until I find a school?"
"We"ll find the school," said the other woman. "That is what we are for; we look after girls like you. We are glad to find a girl who wants to go to school."
Polly laid her pack down to change hands and looked about her in delight. The big brick buildings, the store-windows, even the street-signs with their flaring colors, were all beautiful to her.
"Gee!" she said, "I like the city--it"s swell!"
Polly was taken to the office of the secretary of the Y.W.C.A., and there, under the melting influence of Miss Bradshaw"s kind eyes and sweet voice, she told all her hopes and fears.
"Our teacher has gone to be a soldier and we could not get another, for they say it is too lonesome--out our way--and how can it be lonesome? There"s children in every house. But, anyway, lady-teachers won"t come and the men are all gone to the war. I"ll bet I won"t be scared to teach when I grow up, but of course I won"t be a lady; it"s different with them--they are always scared of something. We have a cabin for the teacher, and three chairs and a painted table and a stove and a bed, and a bra.s.s k.n.o.b on the door, and we always brought cream and eggs and bread for the teacher; and we washed his dishes for him, and the girl that had the best marks all week could scrub his floor on Friday afternoons. He was so nice to us all that we all cried when he enlisted, but he explained it all to us--that there are some things dearer than life and he just felt that he had to go. He said that he would come back if he was not killed. Maybe he will only have one arm and one leg, but we won"t mind as long as there is enough of him to come back. We tried and tried to get another teacher, but there are not enough to fill the good schools, and ours is twenty miles from a station and in a foreign settlement.... I"m foreign, too," she added honestly; "I"m Russian."
"The Russians are our allies," said the secretary, "and you are a real little Canadian now, Polly, and you are not a bit foreign. I was born in Tipperary myself, and that is far away from Canada, too."
"Oh, yes, I know about it being a long way there," Polly said. "But that doesn"t matter, it is the language that counts. You see my mother can"t talk very good English and that is what makes us foreign, but she wants us all to know English, and that is why she let me come away, and I will do all I can to learn, and I will be a teacher some day, and then I will go back and plant the garden and she will send me b.u.t.ter, for I will live in the cabin. But it is too bad that we cannot have a teacher to come to us, for now, when I am away, there is no one to teach my mother English, for Mary does not speak the English well by me, and the other children will soon forget it if we cannot get a teacher."
While she was speaking, the genial secretary was doing some hard thinking. This little messenger from the up-country had carried her message right into the heart of one woman, one who was accustomed to carry her impulses into action.
The Local Council of Women of the City of Edmonton met the next day in the club-room of the Y.W.C.A., and it was a well-attended meeting, for the subject to be discussed was that of "National Service for Women." As the time drew near for the meeting to begin, it became evident that great interest was being taken in the subject, for the room was full, and animated discussions were going on in every corner.
This was not the first meeting that had been held on this subject, and considerable indignation was heard that no notice had been taken by the Government of the request that had been sent in some months previous, asking that women be registered for national service as well as men.
"They never even replied to our suggestion," one woman said. "You would have thought that common politeness would have prompted a reply.
It was a very civil note that we sent--I wrote it myself."
"Hush! Don"t be hard on the Government," said an older woman, looking up from her knitting. "They have their own troubles--think of Quebec!
And then you know women"s work is always taken for granted; they know we will do our bit without being listed or counted."
"But I want to do something else besides knitting," the first speaker said; "it could be done better and cheaper anyway by machinery, and that would set a lot of workers free. Why don"t we register ourselves, all of us who mean business? This is our country, and if the Government is asleep at the switch, that is no reason why we should be. I tell you I am for conscription for every man and woman."
"Well, suppose we all go with you and sign up--name, age, present address; married?--if so, how often?--and all that sort of thing; what will you do with us, then?" asked Miss Wheatly, who was just back from the East where she had been taking a course in art. "I am tired of having my feelings all wrought upon and then have to settle down to knitting a dull gray sock or the easy task of collecting Red Cross funds from perfectly willing people who ask me to come in while they make me a cup of tea. I feel like a real slacker, for I have never yet done a hard thing. I did not let any one belonging to me go, for the fairly good reason that I have no male relatives; I give money, but I have never yet done without a meal or a new pair of boots when I wanted them. There is no use of talking of putting me to work on a farm, for no farmer would be bothered with me for a minute, and the farmer"s wife has trouble enough now without giving her the care of a greenhorn like me--why, I would not know when a hen wanted to set!"
"You do not need to know," laughed the conscriptionist; "the hen will attend to that without any help from you; and, anyway, we use incubators now and the hen is exempt from all family cares--she can have a Career if she wants to."
"I am in earnest about this," Miss Wheatly declared; "I am tired of this eternal talk of national service and nothing coming of it. Now, if any of you know of a hard, full-sized woman"s job that I can do, you may lead me to it!"
Then the meeting began. There was a very enthusiastic speaker who told of the great gift that Canada had given to the Empire, the gift of men and wheat, bread and blood--the sacrament of empire. She then told of what a sacrifice the men make who go to the front, who lay their young lives down for their country and do it all so cheerfully. "And now," she said, "what about those of us who stay at home, who have three good meals every day, who sleep in comfortable beds and have not departed in any way from our old comfortable way of living. Wouldn"t you like to do something to help win the war?"
There was a loud burst of applause here, but Miss Wheatly sat with a heavy frown on her face.
"Wasn"t that a perfectly wonderful speech?" the secretary whispered to her when the speaker had finished with a ringing verse of poetry all about sacrifice and duty.
"It is all the same old bunk," Miss Wheatly said bitterly; "I often wonder how they can speak so long and not make one practical suggestion. Wouldn"t you like to help win the war? That sounds so foolish--of course we would like to win the war. It is like the old-fashioned evangelists who used to say, "All who would like to go to heaven will please stand up." Everybody stood, naturally."
While they were whispering, they missed the announcement that the president was making, which was that there was a young girl from the North Country who had come to the meeting and wished to say a few words. There was a deep, waiting silence, and then a small voice began to speak. It was Miss Polly Rogowski from the Abilene Valley District.
There was no fear in Polly"s heart--she was not afraid of anything.
Not being a lady, of course, and having no reputation to sustain, and being possessed with one thought, and complete master of it, her speech had true eloquence. She was so small that the women at the back of the room had to stand up to see her.
"I live at Abilene Valley and there are lots of us. I am fourteen years old and Mary is twelve, and Annie is eleven, and Mike is ten, and Peter is nine, and Ivan is seven, and Olga is six, and that is all we have old enough to go to school; but there are lots more of other children in our neighborhood, but our teacher has gone away to the war and we cannot get another one, for lady-teachers are all too scared, but I don"t think they would be if they would only come, for we will chop the wood, and one of us will stay at night and sleep on the floor, and we will light the fires and get the breakfast, and we bring eggs and cream and everything like that, and we could give the teacher a cat and a dog; and the girl that had done the best work all week always got to scrub the floor when our last teacher was there; and we had a nice garden--and flowers, and now there is not anything, and the small children are forgetting what Mr. Ellis taught them; for our school has been closed all last summer, and sometimes Peter and Ivan and the other little boys go over to the cabin and look in at the windows, and it is all so quiet and sad--they cry."
There was a stricken silence in the room which Polly mistook for a lack of interest and redoubled her efforts.
"We have twenty-four children altogether and they are all wanting a teacher to come. I came here to go to school, but if I can get a teacher to go back with me, I will go back. I thought I would try to learn quick and go back then, but when I saw all so many women able to read right off, and all looking so smart at learning, I thought I would ask you if one of you would please come. We give our teacher sixty-five dollars a month, and when you want to come home we will bring you to the station--it is only twenty miles--and the river is not deep only when it rains, and then even I know how to get through and not get in the holes; and if you will come we must go to-morrow, for the ice is getting rotten in the river and won"t stand much sun."
That was the appeal of the country to the city; of the foreign-born to the native-born; of the child to the woman.
The first person to move was Miss Wheatly, who rose quietly and walked to the front of the room and faced the audience. "Madam President,"
she began in her even voice, "I have been waiting quite a while for this, I think. I said to-day that if any one knew of a real, full-sized woman"s job, I would like to be led to it.... Well--it seems that I have been led"
She then turned to Polly and said, "I can read right off and am not afraid, not even of the river, if you promise to keep me out of the holes, and I believe I can find enough of a diploma to satisfy the department, and as you have heard the river won"t stand much sun, so you will kindly notice that my address has changed to Abilene Valley Post-Office."