 CHAPTER VIII. A Campfire Interpreter, Alice C. Fletcher Ho, all ye heavens, all ye of the earth, I bid ye, hear me, into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, consent ye all I implore, make its path smooth, then it shall travel beyond the four hills. Omaha Tribal Rite, translated by Alice C. Fletcher. A campfire interpreter. A great poet once tried to look into the future and picture the kind of people who might someday live upon the earth. People wiser and happier than we are, because they shall have learned through our mistakes and carried to success our beginnings, and so have come to understand fully many things that we see dimly as through a mist. These people, Tennyson calls, the crowning race. Of those that eye to eye shall look on knowledge under whose command is earth and earth's, and in their hand is nature like an open book. You see, he believed that the way to gain command of earth is through learning to read the open book of nature. That book is closed to most of us today because we are just beginning to spell out something of its message. And as we begin to understand, we feel it is not a strange speech, but our own true mother tongue, which ears, deafened by the noise of the busy world, have almost ceased to hear and understand. There comes a time, however, when we feel the call of the wild. We long to get away from the horse cries of engines and the grinding roar of turning wheels to a quiet that is unbroken even by a passing motorhorn. Have you ever found yourself for a happy half hour alone among the great trees of the friendly woods? You must have felt that in getting near to nature you were finding yourself. Did not the life of the trees of the winged creatures of the branches of the cool mossy ground itself seem a part of your life? Have you ever climbed a hill when it seemed that the wind was blowing something of its own strength and freshness into your soul? Did you not feel as if you were mounting higher and higher into the air and lifting the sky with you? Have you ever found yourself at evening in a great, clear, open place where the tent of the starry heavens over your head seemed nearer than the shadowy earth and all the things of the day? This is the story of a girl who loved to listen to the deep chant of the ocean, to the whisper of the wind in the trees, and to the silence in the heart of the hills. She came to feel that there was a joy and a power in the open, in the big, free, unspoiled haunts and furtive beasts and darting birds, that all the man-made wonders of the world could not give. If I am so much happier and more alive, she said to herself, in the days that I spend under the open sky, what must it be like always to live this freer life? Did not the people who lived as nature's own children, in these very woods that I come to as a guest of an hour or a summer, have a wisdom and a strength that our life today cannot win? Again and again the thought came knocking at her heart. The men whom we call savages, whom we have crowded out of the land they once roamed over freely, must have learned very much in all the hundreds of years that they lived close to nature. They could teach us a great deal that cannot be found in books. Alice C. Fletcher grew up in a cultured New England home. She had the freedom of a generous library and early learned to feel that great books and wise men were familiar friends. They talked to her kindly and never frightened her by their big words and learned looks. She looked through the veil of words to the living meaning. She was too very fond of music. Playing the piano was more than practicing an elegant accomplishment, just as reading her books was more than learning lessons. As the books stirred her mind to thinking and wondering, so the music stirred her heart to feeling and dreaming. It often seemed, however, that much that her books and music struggled in vain to bring within her walls was quite clear when she found herself in the large freedom of nature's house. The sunshine, the blue sky, and the good wholesome smell of the brown earth seemed to give a taste of the spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, truth breathed by cheerfulness. Once in her reading she came across the story of the scholar who left Oxford and the paths of learning to follow the ways of the wandering Gypsies in order that he might learn the natural wisdom they had won. Ah, she said to herself, some day when I am free to live my life in my own way, I shall leave my books and go out among the Indians. Our country should know what its first children saw and thought and felt. I shall try to see with their eyes and hear with their ears for a while, and I shall discover in that way perhaps a new world, one that will be lost forever when the red men are made to adopt all the tricks and manners of civilized life. The time came when she found herself free to realize this dream. You don't mean to say you're really going to live with the Indians, her friends exclaimed. How else can I know them? she replied quietly. But to give up every necessary comfort, there is something perhaps better than just making sure that we are always comfortable, said Miss Fletcher. Of course I shall miss easy chairs and cozy chats and all the lectures, concerts, latest books and daily papers, but I'm glad to find out that all these nice things are not really so necessary, and they can keep me from doing a bit of work that is really worthwhile and which perhaps needs just what I can bring to it. At this time Miss Fletcher's earnest, thoughtful studies of what books and museums could teach about the early history of America and the interesting time before history had given her a recognized place among the foremost scholars of archaeology, the science that reads the story of the forgotten past through the relics that time has spared. Many people can be found to study the things about the Indians which can be collected and put in museums, said Miss Fletcher, but there is need of a patient, sympathetic study of the people themselves. In order to make this study she spent not only months but years among the Dakota and Omaha Indians. From a wigwam made of buffalo skins she watched the play of the children and the life of the people and listened to their songs and stories. The Indian is not the stern, unbending, wooden Indian that shows neither interest nor feeling of any sort as many people have come to think of him, said Miss Fletcher. Those who picture him so have never really known him. They have only seen the side he turns toward strangers. In the home and among their friends the Indians show fun, happy give and take and warm, alert interest in the life about them. The cultivated New England woman and distinguished scholar won their confidence because of her sincerity, tact and warm human sympathy. She not only learned their speech and manners but also the language of their hearts. Her love of nature helped her to a ready understanding of these children of nature or Wakanda as they called the spirit of life that breathed through earth and sky, rocks, streams, plants, all living creatures and the tribes of men. The beautiful ceremony by which soon after his birth each Omaha child was presented to the powers of nature showed this sense of kinship between the people and their world. A priest of the tribe stood outside the wigwam to which the new life had been sent and with right hand outstretched to the heavens chanted these words in a loud voice. Ho ye sun moon stars all ye that move in the heavens I bid ye hear me into your midst has come a new life consent ye I implore make its path smooth that it may reach the brow of the first hill. Next the forces of the air winds clouds mist and rain were called upon to receive the young child and smooth the path to the second hill. Then hills valleys rivers lakes trees and all growing things were invoked after which the spirits of birds animals and all moving creatures were summoned to make the path smooth to the third and fourth hills. As the priest intoned the noble appeal to all the powers of the earth and air and bending heavens even those who could not understand the words would know that the four hills meant childhood youth manhood and age and that a new life was being presented to the forces of the universe of which it was apart. So it was that each child was thought of as belonging to Wakanda to the spirit of all life before he belonged to the tribe for it was not until he was four or five years old that he gave up his baby name such as bright eyes little bird or baby squirrel and was given a real name and received into the life of the people. Miss Fletcher soon became interested in the music of the Indians. Her trained ear told her that here was something new. The haunting bits of melody and strange turns of rhythm were quite different from any old world tunes. At first it was very hard to hear them said Miss Fletcher. The Indians never saying to be heard by others. Their singing was a spontaneous expression of their feeling for the most part religious feeling. In their religious ceremonies the noise of the dancing and of the drums and rattles often made it very hard to really catch the sound of the voice. Day after day she strove to hear and write down bits of the music but it was almost like trying to imprison the sound of the wind in the tree tops. Do you remember said Miss Fletcher how the old Saxon poet tried to explain the mystery of life by saying it was like a bird flying through the windows of a lighted hall out of the darkness to darkness again. An Indian melody is like that it has no preparations no beginning. It flashes upon you and is gone leaving only a teasing memory behind. While this lover of music was vainly trying to catch these strangely beautiful strains of melody the unaccustomed hardships of her life brought upon her a long illness. There was compensation however for when she could no longer go after the things she sought it came to her. Her Indian friends who had found out that she was interested in their songs gathered about her couch to sing them for her. So my illness was after all like so many of our so-called trials a blessing in disguise said Miss Fletcher. I was left with this lameness but I had the music the sigh had become a song. You have perhaps heard of the great interest that many learned people have in the songs and stories of simple folk the folk songs and folk tales of different lands. Did you know that Sir Walter Scott's first work in literature was the gathering of the simple ballads of the Scottish peasants which they had long repeated just as you repeat the words of ring games learned from other children. Did you know that most of the fairy stories and hero tales that you love were told by people who had never held a book in their hands and were repeated ages and ages ago before the time of books just as it is true that broad flowing rivers have their source in streams that well up out of the ground so it is true that the literature of every nation has its source in the fancies that have welled up out of the hearts and imaginations of the simple people. The same thing is true of music great composers like Brahms and List took the wild heirs of the Hungarian gypsies and made them into splendid compositions that all the world applauded. Chopin has done this with the songs of the simple Polish folk. Dvorak the great Bohemian composer has made his new world symphony of Negro melodies and Cadman and others are using the native Indian music in the same way. Just as the Grimm brothers went about among the German peasants to learn their interesting stories just as Sir George Dacent worked to get the tales of the Norse so Alice Cunningham Fletcher worked to preserve the songs and stories of the Indians. Others have come after her and have gone on with the work she began following the trail she blazed. All musicians agree that this native song with its fascinating and original rhythms may prove the inspiration for American composers of genius and give rise to our truest new world music. Much of Miss Fletcher's work is preserved in great learned volumes such as the Omaha tribe published by the national government for she wrote as a scientist for those who will carry on the torch of science into the future. But realizing that the music would mean much too many who cannot enter upon the problems with which the wise men concern themselves she had presented many of the songs in a little book called Indian Story and Song. We find therefore instance the song of the laugh song when the brave young warrior recounts the story of the way he has slain his enemy with his own club and so helped to fill with fear the foes of his tribe. We find too the story of the youth who begins his life as a man by a lonely vigil when by fasting he proves his powers of endurance. The Omaha tribal prayer is the solemn melody that sounded through the forests of America long before the white man came to this country a cry of the yearning human spirit to Wakanda the spirit of all life tried to picture Miss Fletcher surrounded by her Indian friends explaining to them carefully all about the strange machine before which she wants them to sing for the graphophone was a field worker with her for a time her chief assistant in catching the elusive Indian songs perhaps there could have been no greater proof of their entire confidence in her than their willingness to sing for her again and again and even to give into the keeping of her queer little black cylinders the strains that voiced their deepest and most sacred feelings for Indian music is for the most part an expression of the bond between the human spirit and the unseen powers of nature it must have been that they felt from the first that here was someone who understood them because she too loved the nature they knew and loved while miss Fletcher was thus happily at work she became aware however that there was keen distress among these friends to whom she had become warmly attached some of their neighbors the Ponca Indians had been removed from their lands to the dreaded hot country Indian territory and the Omaha people feared that the same thing might happen to them for it was very easy for unprincipled white men to take advantage of the Indians who held their lands as a tribe not as individuals always on the frontier of settlement there were bold adventurers who coveted any promising tracts of land that the Indians possessed they said to themselves we could use this country to much better advantage than these savages therefore it should be ours they then would encroach more and more on the holdings of the Indians defying them by every act which said plainly a red skin has no rights sometimes when endurance could go no further the Indians would rise up in active revolt then what more easy than to cry out an Indian uprising there will be a massacre send troops to protect us from the mad fury of the savages the government would then send a detachment of cavalry to quell the outbreak after which it would seem wiser to move the Indians a little farther away from contact with the white men who now had just what they had been working toward from the first the possession of the good land miss Fletcher realized that the only remedy for this condition was for each Indian to secure from the government a legal title to a portion of the tribal grant which he might hold as an individual she left her happy work with the music and went to washington to explain to the president and to congress the situation as she knew it the cause was at this time greatly furthered by the appearance of a book by helen hunt jackson called a century of dishonor an eloquent presentation of the Indians wrongs and a burning plea for justice there was a need however of some practical worker who knew the Indians and Indian affairs intimately to point out a solution of the problem the conscience of the people was aroused but they did not know how it was possible to prevent in the future the same sort of wrongs that had made the past hundred years indeed a century of dishonor then the resolute figure of miss alice Fletcher appeared on the scene she was well known to the government authorities for her valuable scientific work here was someone they knew who really could explain the exact state of affairs and who could also interpret fairly the mind of the Indian she could be depended on as one who would not be swayed by mere sentimental considerations she would know the practical course to pursue let the Indians hold their land as the white men hold theirs she said that is the only way to protect them from wrong and to protect the government from being a helpless partner to the injustice that is done them now it is one thing to influence people who are informed and interested and quite another to awaken the interest of those who are vitally concerned with totally different things miss Fletcher realized that if anything was to be actually accomplished she must leave no stone unturned to bring the matter to the attention of those who had here too for not given a thought to the Indian question and the responsibility of the government she presented a petition to congress and worked early and late to drive home to the people the urgent need of legislation in behalf of the Indians she spoke in clubs in churches in private houses and before committees in congress and actually the busy congressmen who always feel that there is not half the time enough to consider measures by which their own states and districts will profit gave right of way to the Indian land act and in 1882 it became a law there was the need of the services of some disinterested person to manage the difficult matter of dividing the tribal tracts and allotting to each Indian his own acres and miss Fletcher was asked by the president to undertake this work why do you trust miss Fletcher above anyone else asked president Cleveland on one occasion when he was receiving a delegation of Omaha's at the White House we have seen her in our homes we have seen her in her home we find her always the same was the reply the work which miss Fletcher did and allotting the land to the Omaha's was so successfully handled that she was appealed to by the government to serve in the same capacity for the Winnebago and Nez Perce Indians the law whose passage was secured by her zeal was the forerunner the severality act of 1885 which marked a change in policy of the government and ushered in a better era for all the Indian tribes what led you to undertake this important work miss Fletcher was asked the most natural desire in the world the impulse to help my friends where I saw the need she replied I did not set out resolved to have a career to form and to reform there is no story in my life it has always been just one step at a time one thing which I have tried to do as well as I could and which has led on to something else it has all been in the day's work miss Fletcher has been much interested in the work of the boy and girl scouts and the campfire societies because she feels that in this way many children are brought to an appreciation of the great out of doors and when health power and joy which the life of cities cannot give for them she has made a collection of Indian games and dances just as the spirit of Sir Walter Scott guides us through the Scottish Lake Country and as Dickens leads us about old London so the spirit of the Indians should make us more at home in the forests of America said miss Fletcher in sharing the happy fancies of these first children of America we may win a new freedom in our possession of the playground of the great out of doors end of chapter eight recording by Grace Buchanan chapter nine of heroines of surface this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Larry Wilson heroines of service by Mary Rosetta Parkman the white mother of darkest Africa Mary Slesser I am ready to go anywhere provided it be forward David Livingston God can't give his best till we have given ours Mary Slesser the white mother of darkest Africa among all the weavers in the great factory at Dundee there was no girl more deft and skillful than Mary Slesser she was only eleven when she had to help shoulder the cares of the household and share with the frail mother the task of earning bread for the hungry children for the little family was worse than fatherless the man who had once been a thrifty well-respecting shoemaker had become a slave to drink and his life was a burden to himself and to those who were nearest and dearest to him dinner-crime mither dear Mary had said I can go to the mills in the morning and to school in the afternoon it will be a glad day earning and learning at the same time so Mary became a half-timer in the mills at six o'clock every morning she was at work among the big whirling wheels even the walls and windows seemed to turn sometimes as the hot wind came in her face from the whizzing belts and the roar of the giant wheels filled all her day with din and clamor but as Mary worked week after week she learned more than the trick of handling the shuttle at the moving loom she learned how to send her thoughts far away from the noisy factory to a still place a breeze stirred trees and golden sunshine sometimes a book which she had placed on the loom to peep in at free moments helped her to slip away and fancy from the grinding toil what magic one could find in the wonderful world of books the wheels world off into nothingness the walls melted away like mist and her spirit was free to wander through all the many ways of the wide world and so it was that she went from the hours of work and earning to the hours of study and learning with a blithe morning face her brave soul shining through bright eager eyes when we're all dragged out and feel like grumbling at everything and nothing seems of any use at all Mary Slesser is still up and coming as happy as a cricket said one of the girls who worked by her side she makes you take heart in spite of yourself and think it's something to be glad over just to be living and working it's wonderful the way your hand can go on with the shuttle and do the turn even better than you could if you stop to take thought Mary would explain that leaves your mind free to go another way now this morning I was not in the weaving shed at all I was far away in Africa seeing all the strange sights the missionary from Calabar told us about last night at meeting heaven was very near to Mary Slesser and the stars seemed more real than the street lamps of the town she had come to feel that the troubles and trials of her days were just steps on the path that she would travel always she looked past the rough road to the end of the journey where there was welcome in the father's house for all his tired children there was more over one bit of real romance in that gray scotch world of hers the thrill of beauty and mystery and splendid heroism was in the stories that the missionaries told of Africa the land of tropical wonders pathless forests winding rivers underbending trees bright birds and brighter flowers and people hundreds of black people with black lives because the light of truth had never shown in their world she knew that white people who call themselves christians had gone there to carry them away for slaves and to get their palm oil and rubber and give them rum and exchange rum that was making them worse than the wild beasts of the jungle how Mary Slesser longed to be one to carry the good news of a god of love to those people who lived and died in darkness somebody must help those who can't help themselves she said to herself the fields are ripe for the harvest but the laborers are few one of the missionaries had said we fear the fever and other ills that hide in the bush more than we fear to fail in god's service men have gone to these people to make money from the products of their land they have bought and sold the gifts of their trees they have bought and sold the people themselves they are selling them death today in the strong drink they sin there is there no one who is willing to go to take life to these ignorant children who have suffered so many wrongs these words sank deep into Mary Slesser's heart but it was plain that her mission was to the little home in Dundee she was working now among the attorney wheels all day from six until six and going to school in the evening but she found time to share with others the secret of the joy that she had found the light that had made the days of toil bright the boys that came to her class in the mission school were tufts from the slums of the town but she put many of them on the road to useful happy living her brave spirit won them from their fierce lawlessness her patience and understanding helped to bring out and fortify the best that was in them once a much dreaded gang tried to break up the mission with a battery of mud and jurors when Mary Slesser faced them quietly the leader boldly confronting her swung a lead and weight which hung suspended from a cord about her head threateningly it came nearer and nearer until it grazed her temple but the mission teacher never flinched her eyes still looked into those of the boys bright untroubled and searching his own dropped and the missile fell forgotten to the ground she's game boys he cried surprised out of himself and the unruly mob filed into the mission to hear what the game lady had to say Mary Slesser had never heard of the poet horse but she had put to the proof the truth of the well-known lines which declare that the man whose life is blameless and free from evil has no need of Moorish javelins nor bone or quiver full of poisoned arrows as in her work with the wild boys of the streets so in her visits to the hopeless people of the dark tenements Mary Slesser was a powerful influence because she entered their world as one of them with a faith in the better south of each that called into new life is all but extinguished longing for better things as she sat by the fire holding the baby and talking cheerly about her days at the mills and the Sabbath morning at chapel it seemed as if I were a girl again happy and hopeful and ready to meet whatever the morrow might bring said a discouraged mother to whom Mary had been a friend in need it is like hearing the Kirk bells on a Sunday morning at the old home hearing your voice Mary Slesser said a poor blind woman to whom Mary had brought the light of restored faith for 14 years this happy scotch girl worked in the factory for 10 hours each day and shared her evenings and Sundays with her neighbors of the mission besides she sees moments by the way for study and reading her mind was hungry to understand the meaning of life and the truths of religion one day in order to find out the sort of mental food she craved a friend lent her Carlisle's sartor risartus how are you and Carlisle getting on together he asked quizzically when they next met it is grand she replied with earnest enthusiasm I sat up reading it and was so interested that I did not know what the time was until I heard the factory bells calling me to work in the morning thus her mind was growing and expanding while her spirit grew through faithful work and loyal service her simple direct speech had an eloquent appeal that went straight to the heart in spite of an unconquerable timidity that made her shrink from platform appearances her informal addresses had a wide influence once she rose in her place at a public meeting and gave a quiet talk on the words the common people heard him gladly and it was said the common people heard her gladly and crowded around pleading with her to come again in 1874 when everyone was stirred by the death of David Livingston Mary Slesser's life was transfigured by great resolve the years had brought changes her father was dead and her sisters were old enough to share the burden of supporting the family the time has come for me to join the band of lightbearers to the dark continent said Mary with a conviction that overcame every obstacle it is my duty to go where the laborers are few besides there must be a way to work there and send help to mother at home she knew that the missionaries were given a stipend to support them in the manner of the country from which they came I shall as far as possible live on the food of the country she said it may be that by sharing to a greater extent the conditions of life of the people I can come to a fuller understanding of them and they have me besides it will not be so hard to leave home if I can feel that I am still earning something for mother so Mary Slesser went after a few months of special preparation to teach the natives of Calabar she was at this time 28 years old ever since she was a mere slip of a girl she had longed to serve in that most discouraging of fields the slums of Africa it was called the people who inhabited that swampy equatorial region were the most wretched and degraded of all the negro tribes they had for ages been the victims of stronger neighbors who drove them back from the drier and more desirable territory that lay farther inland and of their own ignorance and superstitions which were at the root of their bloodthirsty savage customs it was in September 1876 that the vessel Ethiopia sailed out of the clean blue Atlantic into the mud-colored Calabar river at its prow stood Mary Slesser gazing soberly at the vast mangrove swamps and wondering about the unknown unexplored land beyond where she should pitch her tent and begin her work though white men had for centuries come to the coast to trade for gold dust ivory palm oil spices and slaves they had never ventured inland and the natives who lived near the shore had sought to keep the lion's share of the profit by preventing the remote tribes from coming with their goods to barter directly with the men of the big ships so only a few miles from the mouth of the Calabar river was a land where white people had never gone whose inhabitants had never seen a white face it was to this place of unknown dangers that Mary Slesser was bound for a time she remained at the mission settlement to learn the language while teaching in the day school as soon as she gained sufficient ease in the use of the native speech she began to journey through the bush as the tropical jungles of palms bananas ferns and thick grass were called her heart sang as she went along now waiting through a spongy morass bright with orchids now jumping over a stream or the twisted roots of a giant tree after the chill grayness of her scottish country this land seemed at first a veritable paradise of golden warmth alluring sounds and scents and vivid color now she paused in delight as a brilliant bird flashed through the branches of her head now she went on with buoyant step drinking in the tropical fragrance with every breath surely so fair a land could not be so deadly as it was said she must keep well for the task that lay before her she could not doubt that each day would bring strength for the day's work with two or three of the boys from the calabar school as guides she made the journey to some of the out districts here a white face was the thing of wonder or terror the children ran away shrieking with fear the women pressed about her chattering and feeling her clothing and her face to see if she was real at first she was startled but she soon divined that this was just the beginning of friendly acquaintance miss lesser soon showed an astonishing mastery of the language and an even more amazing comprehension of the minds of the people she realized that the natives were not devoid of ideas and beliefs but that on the contrary certain crude conceptions strongly rooted through the custom and tradition of ages accounted for many of their horrible practices they put all twin babies to death because they believed that one of them was a demon child whose presence in a tribe would bring untold harm on the people they tortured and murdered helpless fellow creatures not wantonly but because they believed that their victims had been bewitching a suffering chief for disease was a mysterious plight caused by the evil eye of a malicious enemy when a chief died many people were slaughtered for of course he would want slaves and companions in the world of spirits it was wonderful the way Mary Schleser was able to move about among the rude half-naked savages as confidently as she had among her people in Scotland looking past the dirt and ugliness to the human heart beneath tortured by fear or grief and say a word that brought hope and comfort she feared neither the crouching beasts of the jungle nor the treacherous tribes of the scattered mud villages picking her way over the uncertain bush trails she carried medicine tended the sick and spoke words of sympathy and cheer to the distressed sometimes she stayed away over several nights when her lodging was a mud hut and her bed a heap of unpleasant rags the people soon learned that her interest went beyond teaching and preaching and giving aid to the sick she cared enough for their welfare to lead them by night past the centuries of the jealous coast tribes to the factory near the beach where they could dispose of their palm oil and kernels to their own profit she won in this way the goodwill of the traders who said there is a missionary of the right sort she will accomplish something because she is taking hold of all the problems that concern her people and is working systematically to improve all the conditions of their lives one day she set forth on a trip of 30 miles along the river to visit the village of a chief named Ocon who had sent begging her to come a stake canoe which was lent by king Ayo of Calabar had been gaily painted in her honor and a canopy of matting to shield her from the sun and due had been thoughtfully erected over a couch of rice bags hours passed in the tender formalities of farewell and when the paddlers actually got the canoe out into the stream it was quite dark the red gleam of their torches fell upon venom mistakes and alligators but there was no fear while her companions beat the tom tom and sang as they played their paddles loud songs in praise such as ma our beautiful beloved mother is on board ho ho ho such unwanted clamor no doubt struck terror to all the creatures with claws and fangs along the banks after ten hours of paddling she arrived at Ocon's village a human skull stuck on a pole was the first sight that greeted her crowds gathered about to stare and touch her hand to make sure that she was flesh and blood at mealtimes a favorite few who were permitted to watch her eat and drink ran about excitedly reporting every detail to their friends for days she went around giving medicines bandaging cutting out garments and teaching the women the mysteries of sewing washing and ironing in the evenings all the people gathered about her quietly while she told them about the god she served a god of love whose ways were peace and loving kindness at the end they filed by wishing her good night with much feeling before they disappeared into the blackness of the night these new friends were not permitted to walk about in the bush as she had been used to doing there were elephants in the neighboring jungle they said the huge beasts had trampled down all their growing things so that they had to depend mainly on fishing one morning on hearing that a bow constrictor had been seen bands of men armed with clubs and muskets set off yelling fiercely to hunt the common enemy but more terrible to mary slesser than any beast to pray were the skulls horrible images and offerings to ravenous spirits that she saw on every side how was it possible to teach the law of love to a people who had never known anything but the tyranny of fear i must learn something of the patience of the creator of all she said to herself again and again for how long has he born with the sins and weakness of his poor human children always caring for us and believing that we can grow into something better in spite of all after two weeks in elephant country miss lesser made ready to return to the mission roars canoe and baggage were in readiness and the smoking pot of yams and herbs cooked in palm oil was put on board for the evening meal scarcely had they partaken however when mary saw that the setting sun was surrounded by angry clouds and her ear caught the ominous sound of the wind wailing in the treetops we are coming into a stormy night she said fearfully to okon who was courtlessly escorting the party back to old town the chief lifted his black face to the black sky and scanned the clouds solemnly then he hastily steered for a point of land that lay sheltered from the wind before they could reach the leeside however the thunder broke and the wild sweep of the wind seized the canoe and whirled it about like a paper toy crew and chief alike were helpless from terror when mary took her own fear in hand and ordered the roars to make for the tangle of trees that bordered the bank the men pulled together with renewed hope and strength until the shelter of the bush was reached then springing like monkeys into the overhanging branches they held on to the canoe which was being dashed up and down like a straw the white mother who was sitting in water to her knees and shaking with aghu calmed the fears of the panic-stricken children who had buried their faces in her lap and looked about in odd wonder the weird beauty of the scene the vivid flashes of lightning shattered the darkness with each peel of thunder revealing luxuriant tropical vegetation rising above the last water foaming and hissing under the slanting downpour of the rain and the tossing canoe with the crouching gleaming wet figures of the frightened crew this was but one of many thrilling adventures that filled the days of the brave young missionary when the appeal came no matter what the time of midday heat or midnight blackness she was ready to journey for hours through the bush to bring succor and comfort once the news came that a chief of a village had been seized by a mysterious illness knowing that this would mean torture and death perhaps to those suspected of having invasively afflicted him by the evil eye she set off along the trail through the dense force to use all her influence to save the unfortunate victims but ma the people would protest you don't understand if you god people not punish evil bad ones say good ways no good bad ones go round cast spells with no fear no one safe at all of all their superstitious fears the horror of twin babies was the most universal with great difficulty miss lesser managed to save a few of these unfortunate infants at first some of the people refused to come into the hut where a twin child was kept but when they saw that no plague attacked the place or the rash white ma they looked upon her with increased respect the white mother must have a power much greater than that of the witch doctors the witch doctors knew a great deal no doubt when a man had a tormented back they could tell what enemy had put a spell on him oh yes ma the witch doctor he knows declared a chief who was suffering with an abscess just see all those claws teeth and bones over there he took them all out of my back but if ma did not understand about such spells she had a wonderful magic of her own she knew soothing things to put on the bewitched back that could drive the pain away and make it well the influence of the healer was often stronger than the influence of the witch doctor and the superstitious fears of all the tribe again and again her will prevailed in the palaver and the chief to please her would spare the lives of those who should by every custom of the land be put to death ma required strange things of them but she was the best friend they had ever had when she stood up before them and spoke so movingly it seemed as if she would talk the heart right out of the sternest savage of them all she made them forget the things that they had known all their lives who would have believed that they would even dream of allowing a chief's son to go unattended into the spirit world yet when she begged them to spare the lives of the slaves who should have been sent with him they had at last consented and it didn't take a witch doctor to tell one that a twin child should never be allowed to live and work its demon spells in the world still they allowed her to save some of them alive it was said that prudent people had even gone into the room where the rescue twins were kept and had touched them without fear they had been almost persuaded that these queerly born babies were just like other children the white mother of Calabar always had a family of little black waves that she had rescued from violent death or neglect besides the unfortunate twins there were the children whose slave mothers had died when they were tiny infants nobody has time to bring up a child that will belong to somebody else as soon as it is good for something it was said so the motherless children were left in the bush to die mary slusser loved her strange black brood tinderly baby things are always gentle and lovable she used to say these children who have had right training from the beginning will grow up to be leaders and teachers of their people for twelve years miss slusser worked in connection with the established mission at calabar journeying about to outline villages as the call came it had for long been her dream however to go still farther inland to the wild okoyang tribe whose very name was a terror throughout the land her mother and her sister janey who together made a home for her had died there is no one to write and tell all my stories and troubles and nonsense too she said but heaven is now nearer to me than britain and nobody will be anxious about me if i go up country in king ayo's royal canoe she made the journey to the strange people leave in the paddlers who were mortal enemies to the okoyang tribe at the water's edge she made her way along the jungle trail to a village four miles inland here the people crowded about her greatly excited they called her mother and seemed pleased that she had come to them without fear the chief edam and his sister mae ame received her in a friendly fashion her courage frankness and ready understanding one favor from the beginning may i have ground for a school house and a home with you here she asked will you have me stay as your friend and help you as i have helped the people of calabar? eagerly they assented it would be a fine thing to have a white mother in their country will you grant me that the house i built shall be a place of refuge for those in distress for those charged with witchcraft or threatened with death for any other cause will you promise that they shall be safe with me until we consider together their case the people looked at the strange woman wonderingly why should she ask this thing what difference could it make to her life is precious she said simply as if she had read their thoughts i am here to help you to care for those who are sick or hurt and i must be allowed to see that each one who is in any sort of trouble is treated fairly will you promise that my house shall be a place of refuge again they gravely assented so greatly encouraged she returned to calabar to pack her goods and prepared to leave the old field for the new all her friends gathered about her loudly lamenting she was surely going to her death they said her fellow workers regarded her with wonder and pity nothing can make any impression on the ocho young save a consul and a british gunboat they declared but mary slesser was undaunted she stowed her boxes and her little family of five small waves away in the canoe as happily as if she were starting out on a pleasure trip to a friend in scotland she wrote i am going to a new tribe of country a fierce cruel people and everyone tells me they will kill me but i don't fear any hurt only to combat their savage customs will require courage and firmness on my part the life in ocho yang did indeed require fortitude and faith remote from friends and helpers in the midst of that most dreaded of all african tribes she patiently worked to lighten the darkness of the degraded people and make their lives happier and better with her rare gift of intuition she had once felt that ma eame the chief's sister had a warm heart and a strong character she will be my chief ally she said to herself and time proved that she was right a spark in the black woman's soul was quickened by the white mother's flaming zeal dimly she felt the power of the new law of love often at the risk of her life should she be discovered she kept the missionary informed in regard to the movements of the people whether it was a case of witchcraft or murder of vengeance or a raid on a neighboring tribe ma was sure to find it out and her influence was frequently strong enough to avert a tragedy as at calabar she found that the greatest obstacle in the way of progress was the general indulgence in rum which the white people gave the natives in exchange for their palm oil spices rubber and other products do not drink the vile stuff do not take it or sell it she begged it is like poison to your body it burns out your life and heart and brings every trouble upon you what for a white man bring them rum suppose them rum no be good they demanded he be god man bring the rum then what for god man talk so what was there to say with a heavy heart the white mother struggled on to help her people in spite of this great evil which men of the christian world had brought upon these weak ignorant black children and she did make headway in spite of every discouragement i had a lump in my throat often and my courage repeatedly threatened to take wings and fly away though nobody guessed it she said for years this brave woman went on with her work among the wild tribes of nigeria as soon as she began to get the encouragement of results in one place she pressed on to an unworked field realizing that her pioneer work needed to be reinforced and sustained by the strong arm of the law she persuaded the british government to take up the white man's burden and through the influence of consuls and the persuasive presence of a gum boat or two assumed the guardianship of her weak children in spite of failing help and the discouragement of small results she went from one post to another leaving mission houses and chapel huts as outward signs of the new life to which she had been a witness i am ready to go anywhere provided it be forward was her watchword as well as dr livingston's there are so many striking points of likeness between the careers of these two torchbearers to the dark continent as children both had worked at the loom studying hungrily as they toiled both did pioneer work winning the confidence and love of the wild people they taught and served no missionary to africa save dr livingston alone has had a more powerful influence than mary slesser when at last in january 1915 after 39 years of service she died and left to others the task of bearing on the torch to her people sir frederick lugard the governor general of nigeria said by her enthusiasm self-sacrifice and greatness of character she has earned the devotion of thousands of natives among whom she worked and the love and esteem of all europeans irrespective of a class or creed with whom she came in contact she was buried in the land to which she had given her long life of service at the grave when the women after the native fashion began their wild wail of lament one of them lifted up her voice in an exalted appeal that went straight to the heart do not cry do not cry praise god from whom all blessings flow ma was a great blessing of all the words of glowing tribute to her faithful work we may be sure that none would have meant more to the lowly missionary than this cry from the awakened soul of one of her people of the bush end of chapter nine chapter 10 of heroines of service this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by linette caulkins heroines of service by mary rosetta parkman chapter 10 the heroine of radium mary sklodaska curry one truth discovered is immortal and entitles its author to be so for like a new substance in nature it cannot be destroyed haslet the heroine of radium you would hardly think that a big bear room with rows of battered benches and shelves and tables littered with all sorts of queer looking jars and bottles could be a hiding place for fairies yet mary's father who was one of the wise men a war saw said they were always to be found there yes little daughter he said the fairies you may chance to meet with in the woods peeping from behind trees and sleeping in flowers are a tricksy uncertain sort the real fairies who do things are to be found in my dusty laboratory they are the true wonder workers and there you may really catch them at work and learn some of their secrets but father wouldn't the fairies like it better if it wasn't quite so dusty there asked the child no doubt of it replied the professor we need one fairy more to put us to rights at a time when most little girls are playing with dolls marie was playing fairy in the big classroom dusting the tables and shelves and washing the glass tubes and other things that her father used as he talked to his students i think we might see the fairies better if i make all these glasses clear and shiny said marie can i trust your little fingers not to let things fall asked her father remember my funny glasses are precious it might cost us a dinner if you should let one slip the professor soon found that his little daughter never let anything slip either the things he used or the things he said such a wise little fairy and such a busy one he would say i don't know how we could do our work without her if professor lotta slosk sklodowski had not loved his laboratory teaching above all else he would have known that he was overworked as it was he counted himself fortunate in being able to serve truth and to enlist others in her service for the professor's zeal was of the kind that kindles enthusiasm if you had seen the faces of those polish students as they hung on his words and watched breathlessly the result of an experiment you would have known that they too believed in the wonder working fairies it seems as if the polish people have a greater love and understanding of the unseen powers of the world than is given to many other nations if you read the story of poland's tragic struggles against foes within and without until finally the stronger surrounding countries germany austria and russia divided her territory as spoil among themselves and she ceased to exist as a distinct nation you will understand why her children have sought refuge in the things of the spirit they have in a wonderful degree the courage that rises above the most unfriendly circumstances and says one day with life and heart is more than time enough to find a world some of them like Chopin and pata ruski have found a new world in music others have found it in poetry and romance and still others in science the child who dreamed of fairies in her father's classroom was to discover the greatest marvel of modern science a discovery that opened up a new world to the masters of physics and chemistry of our day marie's mother who had herself been a teacher died when the child was very small and so it happened that the busy father had to take sole care of her and make the laboratory do duty as a nursery and playroom it was not strange that the bright thoughtful little girl learned to love the things that were so dear to her father's heart would he not rather buy things for his work than have meat for dinner did he not wear the same shabby kaftan the full russian topcoat that looks like a dressing gown year after year in order that he might have material for important experiments truth was indeed more than meat and the love of learning more than raiment in that home and the little daughter drank in his enthusiasm with the queer laboratory smells which were her native air and the breath of life to her the time came when the child had to leave this nursery to enter school but always when the day's session was over she went directly to that other school where she listened fascinated to all her father taught about the wonders of the inner world of atoms and the mysterious forces that make the visible world in which we live she still believed in fairies oh yes but now she knew their names there were the rainbow fairies light waves that make all the colors we see and many more our eyes are not able to discover but which we can capture by interesting experiments there were sound waves too and the marvelous forces we call electricity magnetism and gravitation when she was nine years old it was second nature to care for her father's batteries beakers and retorts and to help prepare the apparatus that was to be used in the demonstrations of the coming day the students marveled at the child's skill and knowledge and called her with admiring affection professor rona daughter professor there was a world besides the wonderland of the laboratory of which marie was soon aware this was the world of fear where the powers of russia ruled in 1861 the poles had made a vain attempt to win their independence and when marie was a little girl she was born in 1867 the authorities tried to stamp out any further sparks of possible rebellion by adopting unusually harsh measures it was a crime to speak the polish language in the schools and to talk of the old happy days when poland was a nation if anyone was even suspected of looking forward to a better time when the people would not be persecuted by the police or forced to bribe unprincipled officials for a chance to conduct their business without interference he was carried off to the cruel yellow walled prison near the citadel and perhaps sent to a life of exile in Siberia since knowledge means independent thought and capacity for leadership the high schools and universities were particularly under suspicion years afterward when marie spoke of this reign of terror her eyes flashed and her lips were set in a thin white line time did not make the memory less vivid every corridor of my father's school had finger posts pointing to Siberia she declared dramatically when marie was 16 she graduated from the gymnasium for girls receiving a gold medal for excellence in mathematics and sciences in russia as in germany the gymnasium corresponds to our high school but also covers some of the work of the first two years of college the name gymnasium signifies a place where the mind is exercised and made strong in preparation for the work of the universities the position as governess to the daughters of a russian nobleman was offered to the brilliant girl with the sweet serious eyes and gentle voice as it meant independence and a chance to travel and learn the ways of the world marie agreed to undertake the work now for the first time in her life the young polish girl knew work that was not a labor of love her pupils cared nothing for the things that meant everything to her how they loved luxury and show and gay chatter how indifferent they were to truth that would make the world wiser and happier how strangely you look mademoiselle marie said the little countess olga one day in the midst of her french lesson your eyes seem to see things far away marie was truly looking past her pupils passed the rich apartment beyond russia into the great world of opportunity for all earnest workers she had overheard something about another plot among the students of warsaw and knew that some of her father's pupils had been put under arrest suppose they should try to make me testify against my friends said the girl to herself i must leave russia at once my savings will surely take me to paris and there i may get a place as helper in one of the big laboratories where i can learn as i work the eyes that had been dark with fear and instant before became bright with hope eagerly she planned a disguise and a way to slip off the very next night while the household was in the midst of the excitement of a masquerade ball everything went well and in due time she found her trembling self and her slender possessions safely stowed away on a train that was moving rapidly toward the frontier and freedom no one gave a second thought to the little elderly woman with gray hair and spectacles who sat staring out of the window of her compartment at the fields and trees rushing by in the darkness and the starry heavens that the train seemed to carry with it her plain black dress and veil seemed those of a self-respecting upper-class servant who was perhaps going to the bedside of a dying son i feel almost as old as i look marie was saying to herself but how can a girl who is all alone in the world with no one to know what happens to her help feeling old down in my heart though i know that life is just beginning there is something waiting for me beyond the blackness something that needs just little me it was a wonderful relief when the solitary journey was over and the elderly disguise laid aside shall i ever feel really young again said the girl who was not quite 24 but not for a moment did she doubt that there was work waiting for her in the big unexplored world during those early days in paris marie often had reason to be grateful for the plain living of her childhood that had made her independent of creature comforts now she knew actual want in her cold garret furnished only with a cot and chair like a hermit's cell she lived too on hermit's fair black bread and milk but even when it was so cold that the milk was frozen cold comfort indeed the fire of her enthusiasm knew no chill day after day she walked from laboratory to laboratory begging to be given a chance as assistant but always with the same result it was man's work why did she not look for a place in a milliner's shop one day she renewed her appeal to professor lipman in the sorbonne research laboratories something in the still pale face and deep set earnest eyes caught the attention of the busy man perhaps this strange determined girl was starving and besides the crucibles and test tubes were truly in sad need of attention grudgingly he bade her clean the various accessories and care for the furnace her deftness and skill in handling the materials and a practical suggestion that proved of value in an important experiment attracted the favorable notice of the professor he realized that the slight girl with the foreign look and accent whom he had taken in out of an impulse of pity was likely to become one of his most valuable helpers a new day dawned for the ambitious young woman while supporting herself by her laboratory work she completed in two years the university course for a degree in mathematics and two years later she won a second degree in physics and chemistry in the meantime her enthusiasm for science and her undaunted courage in the face of difficulties and discouragements attracted the admiration of a fellow worker pierre curry one of the most promising of the younger professors i love you and we both love the same things he said one day would it not be happier to live and work together than alone and so began that wonderful partnership of two great scientists whose hard work and heroic struggle crowned at last by brilliant success has been an inspiration to earnest workers the world over madam curry set up a little laboratory in their apartment and toiled over her experiments at all hours her baby daughter was often bathed and dressed in this work room among the test tubes and the interesting fumes of advanced research Irene is as happy in the atmosphere of science as her mother was said madam curry to one of her husband's brother professors who seemed surprised to find a crowing infant in a laboratory and if i could afford the best possible nurse she could not take my place for my baby and i know the joy of living and growing together with those we love what was the problem that the mother was working over even when she sewed for her little girl or rocked her to sleep to the gentle crooning of an old polish folk song whose melody Chopin has wrought into one of his tenderest nocturnes the child who used to delight in experiments with light waves in her father's laboratory was interested in the strange glow which professor Becquerel had found that the substance known as uranium gave off spontaneously like the x-rays this light passes through wood and other bodies opaque to sunlight madam curry became deeply interested in the problem of the nature of the becquerel rays and their wonderful properties such as that of making the air a conductor for electricity one day she discovered that pitch blend the black mineral from which uranium is extracted was more radioactive that is it gave off more powerful rays than the isolated substance itself and she came to the conclusion that there was some other element in the ore which could it be extracted would prove more valuable than uranium with infinite patience and the skill of highly trained specialists in both physics and chemistry madam curry and her husband worked to obtain this unknown substance at times p.r. curry all but lost heart at the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the way it cannot be done he exclaimed one day with a groan truly nature has buried truth deep in the bottom of the sea but man can dive cherami said his wife with a heartening smile think of the joy when one comes up at last with the pearl the pearl of truth at last their toil was rewarded and two new elements were separated from pitch blend polonium so named by Marie curry in honor of her native poland and radium the most marvelous of all radioactive substances a tiny pinch of radium which is a grayish white powder not unlike coarse salt in appearance gives out a strange glow something like that of fireflies but bright enough to read by moreover light and heat are radiated by this magic element with no apparent waste of its own amount or energy radium can also make some other substances diamonds for instance shine with a light like its own and it makes the air a conductor of electricity its weird glow passes through bone almost as readily as through tissue paper or through flesh and it even penetrates an inch thick iron plate the curries now woke to find not only Paris but the world ringing with the fame of their discovery the modest workers wanted nothing however but the chance to go on with their research you know how Tennyson makes the aged Ulysses look forward even at the end of his life to one more last voyage the type of the unconquerable human soul that ever presses on to fresh achievement he says all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move so it was with Pierre Curie and his wife their famous accomplishment opened a new world of interesting possibilities a world which they longed above all things to explore their one trouble was the difficulty of procuring enough of the precious element they had discovered to go on with their experiments because radium is not only rare but also exceedingly hard to extract from the ore it is a hundred times more precious than pure gold it is said that five tons of pitch blend were treated before a trifling pinch of the magic powder was secured it would take over two thousand tons of the mineral to produce a pound of radium moreover it was not easy to secure the ore as practically all the known mines were in Austria and those in control wanted to profit as much as possible by this chance it does seem as if people might not stand in the way of our obtaining the necessary material to go on with our work lamented Pierre Curie what we discover belongs to the world to anyone who can use it we have passed other lions in the way this too we shall pass said Madame Curie quietly they lived in a tiny house in an obscure suburb of Paris giving all that they possessed the modest income gained from teaching and lecturing their share of the Nobel Prize of forty thousand dollars which in 1903 was divided between them and Professor Becquerel together with all their time and all their skill and knowledge to their work for recreation they went for walks in the country with little Irene often stopping for dinner at quaint ends among the trees on one such occasion when Dr. Curie had just declined the decoration of the Legion of Honor because it had no bearing on his work his small daughter climbed on his knee and slipped a red geranium into his buttonhole saying with comic solemnity you are now decorated with the Legion of Honor pray Monsieur what do you intend to do about it I like this emblem much better than the glittering star on a bit of red ribbon and I love the hand that put it there replied the father his face lighting up with one of his rare smiles in this case I make no objection other honors which meant increased opportunity for work were quietly accepted Pierre Curie was elected to the French Academy the greatest honor his country can bestow on her men of genius and achievement Madame Curie received the degree of doctor of physical science and a distinction shared with no other woman the position of special lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris one day in 1906 when Dr. Curie his mind intent on an absorbing problem was absentmindedly hurrying across a wet street he slipped and fell under a passing truck and was instantly killed when they attempted to break the news to Madame Curie by telling her that her husband had been hurt in an accident she looked past them with a white set face and repeated over and over to herself as if trying to get her bearings in the new existence thus stretched blackly before her Pierre is dead Pierre is dead now as on that night when she was leaving Russia for an unknown world she saw a gleam in the blackness there was work to be done there was something waiting in the shadowy future for her something that she alone could do as on that other night she found her lips shaping the words the big world has need of little me but oh it will be hard now to work alone then her eyes fell on her two little girls Irene was now eight years old and baby eve was three who were standing quietly near with big wondering eyes fixed on their mother's strange face forgive me darlings she cried gathering her children into her arms we must try hard to go on with the work father loved together is a magic word for us still little daughters everybody wondered at the courage and quiet power with which madame curie went out to meet her new life she succeeded to her husband's professorship and carried on his special lines of investigation as well as her own the value of her work to science and to humanity may be indicated by the fact that in 1911 the Nobel Prize was again awarded to her the only time it has ever been given more than once to the same person at home she tried to be father as well as mother she took the children for walks in the evening and while she sewed on their dresses and knitted them mittens and mufflers she told them stories of the wonderland of science why do you take time to write down everything you do asked eve one day as she looked over her mother's shoulder at the neat notebook in which the world famous scientist was summing up the work of the day why does a seaman keep along dearie the mother questioned with a smile a laboratory is just like a ship and i want things ship shape every day with me is like a voyage a voyage of discovery but why do you put question marks everywhere mother persisted the child it was true that the pages fairly bristled with interrogation points madame curie laughed as if she had never noticed this before it is good to have an inquiring mind child she said i am like my children i love to ask questions and when one gets an answer when you really discover something it only leads to more questions and so we go on from one thing to another when madame curie was asked on one occasion to what she attributed her success she replied without hesitation to my excellent training first under my father who taught me to wonder and to test second under my husband who understood and encouraged me and third under my children who questioned me it is the day of one of madame curie's lectures the dignified halls of the university are fluttered with many visitors from the world of wealth and fashion there too are distinguished scientists from abroad among whom are lord kelvin sir oliver lodge and sir william ramsey the president of france and his wife enter with royal guests don carlos and queen emily of portugal and the shaw of persia the plotting students and the sober men of learning ranged about the hall blink at the brilliant company like owls suddenly brought into the sunlight at a given moment the hum of conversation dies away and the assemblage rises to its feet as a little blackrobed figure steps in and stands before them on the platform there is an instant stillness a hush of in drawn breath you can almost hear and then the audience gives expression to its enthusiasm in a sudden roar of applause the little woman lifts up her hand pleadingly all is still again and she begins to speak she is slight almost pathetically frail this queen of science you feel as if all her life had gone into her work her face is pale and her hair is only a shadow above her serious brow but the deep set eyes glow and the quiet voice somehow holds the attention of those least concerned with the problems of advanced physics bank and wealth mean nothing to this little blackrobed professor it is said that when she was requested by the president to give a special demonstration of radium and its marvels before the Shaw of Persia she amazed his serene highness by showing much more concern for her tiny tube of white powder than for his distinguished favor when the royal guest who had never felt any particular need of exercising self-control saw the uncanny light that was able to pass through plates of iron he gave a startled exclamation and made a sudden movement that tipped over the scientists material now it was the lady professor's turn to be alarmed to pacify her the Shaw held out a costly ring from his royal finger but this extraordinary woman with the pale face paid not the slightest attention she could not be bribed to forget the peril of her precious radium it is to be doubted if the eastern potentate had ever before been treated with such scant ceremony in 1911 madam curry's name was proposed for election to the academy of sciences while it was admitted that her rivals for the vacancy were below her in merit she failed of being elected by two votes there was a general protest since it was felt that service of the first order had gone unrecognized merely because the candidate happened to be a woman it was stated however that madam curry was not rejected for this reason but because it was thought wise to appoint to that vacancy professor brandley who had given marconi valuable aid in his invention of wireless telegraphy and who since he was then an old man would probably not have another chance for the honor as madam curry on the other hand was only 43 she could well wait for another vacancy since the outbreak of the present war the world has heard nothing new of the work of the heroine of radium we do not doubt however that like all the women of france and all her men of science she is giving her strength and knowledge to the utmost in the service of her adopted country but we know also that just as surely she is seeing the pure light of truth shining through the blackness and that she is following the gleam when the clouds of war shall have cleared away we may see that her labors now as in the past have not only been of service to her country but also to humanity for truth knows no boundaries of nation or race and he who serves truth serves all men end of chapter 10 recording by lennette colkins monument colorado chapter 11 of heroines of service this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox.org recording by chad jackson heroines of service by mary rosetta parkman chapter 11 the heart house jane adams the russian peasants have a proverb that says labor is the house that love lives in by which they mean that no two people or group of people can come into affectionate relation with each other unless they carry on a mutual task the heart of hall house do you remember what the poet says of peter bell at noon when by the forest edge he lay beneath the branches high the soft blue sky did never melt into his heart he never felt the watery of the soft blue sky in the same way when he saw the primrose by the river's brim it was not to him a lovely bit of the miracle of up springing life from the unthinking clot it was just a common little yellow flower which one might idly pick and cast aside but to which one never gave a thought he saw the sky and woods and fields and human faces with the outward eye but not with the eye of the heart or the spirit he had eyes for nothing but the shell and show of things this is the story of a girl who early learned to see with the inward eye she felt the wittery of the soft blue sky and all the wonder of the changing earth and something of the life about her melted into her heart and became part of herself so it was that she came to have a belonging feeling for all that she saw fields pine woods mill stream birds trees and people perhaps little jane adams loved trees and people best of all trees were so big and true with roots ever seeking a firmer hold on the good brown earth and branches growing up and ever up year by year turning sunbeams into strength and people she loved because they had in them something of all kinds of life there was one special tree that had the friendliest nooks where she could nestle and dream and plan plays as long as the summer afternoon perhaps one reason that jane loved this tree was that it reminded her of her tall splendid father you are so big and beautiful and yet you always have a place for a little girl even one who can never be straight and strong jane whispered as she put her arms about her tree friend and when she crept into the shelter of her father's arms she forgot her poor back that made her carry her head weakly on one side when she longed to fling it back and look the world in the face squarely exultingly as her father's daughter should there is no one so fine or so noble as my father jane would say to herself as she saw him standing before his bible class on sundays then her cheek paled and her big eyes grew wistful it would be too bad if people discovered that this frail child belonged to him they would be surprised and pity him and one must never pity father so it came about that though it was her dearest joy to walk by his side clinging to his hand she stepped over to her uncle saying timidly may i walk with you uncle janes this happened again and again to the mild astonishment of the good uncle at last a day came that made everything different jane who had gone to town unexpectedly chance to meet her father coming out of a bank on the main street smiling gaily and raising his shining silk hat he bowed low as if he were greeting a princess and as the shy child smiled back she knew that she had been a very foolish little girl indeed why of course her father made everything that belonged to him all right just because it did belong he had strength and power enough for them both as she walked by a side after that it seemed as if the big grasp of the hand that held hers and folded all the little tremblings of her days what are these funny red and purple specks jane asked once as she looked with loving admiration at the hand which she cloned those marks show that i've dressed millstones in my time just as this flat right thumb tells anyone who happens to notice that i began life as a miller said her father after that jane spent much time at the mill industriously rubbing the ground wheat between thumb and forefinger and when the millstones were being dressed she eagerly held out her little hands in the hope that the bits of flying flint would mark her as they had her father these marks she dimly felt were an outward sign of her father's true greatness he was a leading citizen of their illinois community by right of character and hard one success everybody admired and honored him did not president lincoln even who was her father said the greatest man in the world right to him as a comrade and brother calling him my dear double deed adams years afterward when jane adams spoke of her childhood she said that all her early experiences were directly connected with her father and that two incidents stood out with the distinctiveness of vivid pictures she stood one sunday morning in proud possession of a beautiful new cloak waiting for her father's approval he looked at her a moment quietly and then patted her on the shoulder thy cloak is very pretty jane said the quaker father gravely so much prettier indeed than that of the other little girls that i think thee had better wear thy old one then he added as he looked into her puzzled disappointed eyes we can never perhaps make such things as close quite fair and right in this hill and valley world but it is wrong and stupid to let the differences crop out in things that mean so much more in school and church at least people should be able to feel that they belong to one family another day she had gone with her father on an errand into the poorest quarter of the town it had always before seemed to her country eyes that the city was a dazzling place of toying candy shops smooth streets and contented houses with sleek lawns now she caught a glimpse of quite another city with ugly dingy houses huddled close together and thin dirty children standing miserably about without place or spirit to play it is dreadful the way all the comfortable happy people stay off to themselves said jane when i grow up i shall of course have a big house but it is not going to be set apart with all the other big homes it is going to be right down among the poor horrid little houses like these always after that when jane roamed over her prairie playground or sat dreaming under the norway pines which had grown from the seeds that her father had scattered in his early pioneer days she seemed to hear something of the still sad music of humanity in the voice of the wind in the treetops and then the harmony of her life of varied interests for she saw with the inward eye of her heart and felt the throb of all life in each vital experience that was hers it would be impossible to live apart in pleasant places enjoying beauty which others might not share she must live in the midst of the crowded ways and bring to the poor stifled little houses an ideal of healthier living she would study medicine and go as a doctor to the forlorn dirty children but first there would be many things to learn it was her dream to go to smith college but her father believed that a small college near her home better fitted one for the life to which she belonged my daughter is also a daughter of illinois he said and rockford college is her proper place afterward she may go east and to europe in order to gain a knowledge of what the world beyond us can give and so get a fuller appreciation of what life at home is and maybe jane adams went therefore to the illinois college the mount holy oak of the west a college famed for its earnest missionary spirit the serious temper of her class was reflected in their motto which was the anglo-saxon word for lady who laughed it breadneeter translated as breadgiver and the poppy was selected for the class flower because poppies grow among the wheat as if nature knew that wherever there was hunger that needed food there would be pain that needed relief the study in which she took the keenest interest was history the human tale of this wide world but even at the time of her greatest enthusiasm she realized that while knowledge comes from the records of the past wisdom comes from a right understanding of the actual life of the present after receiving from her alma mater the degree of bachelor of arts she entered the women's medical college in philadelphia to prepare for real work in a real world but the old spinal trouble soon brought that chapter to a close after some months and dr weir mitchell's hospital in a longer time of invalidism she agreed to follow her doctor's pleasant prescription of two years in europe when i returned i decided to give up my medical course said jane adams partly because i had no real aptitude for scientific work and partly because i discovered that there were other genuine reasons for living among the poor than that of practicing medicine upon them while in london miss adams saw much of the life of the great city from the top of an ominibus once she was taken with the number of tourists to see the spectacle of the saturday night auction of fruits and vegetables to the poor of the east side and the lurid picture blotted out all the picturesque impressions full of pleasant human interest and historic association that she had been eagerly enjoying during this first visit to london town always afterwards when she closed her eyes she could see the scene it seemed as if it would never leave her in the flare of the gaslight which made weird and spectral the motley jostling crowd and touched the black shadows it created into a grotesque semblance of life she saw wrinkled women desperate-looking men and pale children vying with each other to secure with their farlings and hapenis the vegetables held up by a horse red-faced auctioneer one haggard youth sat on the curb hungrily devouring the cabbage that he has succeeded in bidding in her sensation loving companions on the bus stared with mingled pity and disgust but the girl who saw what she looked on with the inward eye of the heart turned away her face the poverty that she had before seen had not prepared her for wretchedness like this for the following weeks she said i went about london furtively afraid to look down narrow streets and alleys lest they disclose this hideous human need and suffering in time nothing of the great city seemed real saved the misery of its east end the first impression of london's poverty was of course not only lurid but quite unfair she knew nothing of the earnest workers who are devoting their lives to the problem of giving the right kind of help to those who through weakness ignorance or misfortune were not able to help themselves when five years later she visited toing b Hall she saw effective work of the kind she had dimly dreamed of ever since as a little girl she had wanted to build a beautiful big house among the ugly little ones in the city here in the heart of the white chapel district the most evil and unhappy section of london's east end a group of optimistic large-hearted young men who believed that advantages meant responsibilities had come to live and work while trying to share what good birth breeding and education had given them with those who had been shut away from every chance for wholesome living they believed that they in turn might learn from their humble neighbors much that universities and books cannot teach i've spent too much time in vague preparation for i knew not what said jane adams at last i see a way to begin to live in a really real world and to learn to do by doing and so whole house was born in the heart of the industrial section of chicago where workers of 36 different nations live closely herded together miss adams found surviving a solidly built house with large halls open fireplaces and friendly piazzas this she secured repaired and adapted to the needs of her work naming it whole house from its original owner one of chicago's early citizens but we must not forget that the house is only the outward sign said miss adams the real thing is the work labor is the house that love lives in and as we work together we shall come to understand each other and learn from each other what are you going to put in your house for your interesting experiment miss adams was asked just what i should want in my home anywhere even in your perfectly correct neighborhood she replied with a smile you can imagine the beautiful restful place it was with everything in keeping with the final house on every side were pictures and other interesting things that she had gathered in her travels of course miss adams was not alone in her work her friend ellen gates star was with her from the beginning miss julia lathrub who is now the head of the children's bureau in washington was another fellow worker soon many volunteers came eagerly forward some to teach the kindergarten others to take charge of classes and clubs of various kinds they began teaching different kinds of handwork which then had no place in the public schools one little chap who was brought into the juvenile court the other day for breaking a window confessed to the judge that he had thrown the stone a purpose to get pinched so they would send him to a school where they learn a fellow to make things miss adams was told classes and woodwork basketry sewing weaving and other handicrafts were eagerly patronized there were also evening clubs where boys and girls who had early left school to work in factories could learn to make things of practical value or listen to reading and the spirited telling of the great world stories one day miss adams met a small news boy as he hastily left the house vainly trying to keep back signs of grief there is no use of coming here anymore he said roughly prince roland is dead the evening classes were also social clubs where the children who seem to be growing dull and unfeeling like the turning wheels among which they spent their days could relax their souls and bodies in free happy companionship and get a taste of natural living young people need pleasure as truly as they need food and air said miss adams when i see the throngs of factory girls on our streets in the evening it seems to me that the pitiless city sees in them just two possibilities first the chance to use their tender labor power by day and then the chance to take from them their little earnings at night by appealing to their need of pleasure one of the new buildings that was early added to the original whole house was a gymnasium which provided opportunities for swimming basketball and dancing we have swell times in our whole house club boasted black eyed angelina our floor in the gym puts it all over the old dance halls for a jolly good hop no saloon next door with all that crowd good classy music and the right sort of girls and fellows then sometimes our club has a real party in the coffee house that's what i call a fine cozy time makes a girl glad she's living whole house also puts within the reach of many the things which their active minds crave and opens the way to a new life and success in the world don't you remember me a rising young newspaper man once said to miss adams i used to belong to a whole house club tell me what whole house did for you that really helped she took occasion to ask it was the first house i'd ever been in he replied promptly where books and magazines just lay around as if there were plenty of them in the world don't you remember how much i used to read at that little round table in the back of the library some good people who visit the settlement in a patronizing mood are surprised to discover that many of these working girls have a taste for what is fine miss adams likes to tell them about the intelligent group who followed the reading of george elliott's remola with unflagging interest the club was held in our dining room she said to one incredulous visitor and two of the girls came early regularly to help wash the dishes and arrange the photographs of florence on the table do you know she added looking her prosperous guests quietly in the eyes that the young woman of whom you were inquiring about these people is one of our neighborhood girls those who live in these dingy streets because they are poor and must live near their work are not a different order of beings don't forget what lincoln said god must love the common people he made so many of them you have only to live at whole house a while to learn how true it is that god loves them nothing has ever meant more real inspiration to me said a student of sociology from the university who had spent a year in the settlement then the way the poor help each other a woman who supports three children by scrubbing will share her breakfast with the people in the next tenement because she has heard that they are hard up a man who has been out of work has a month's rent paid by a young chap in the stockyards who bordered with him last year a swedish girl works in the laundry for her german neighbor to let her stay home with her sick baby and so it goes our people have too many other hardships besides the frequent lack of food and fuel said miss adams there are other hungers do you know what it means for the italian peasant used to an outdoor life in a sunny easygoing land to adapt himself to the ways of america it is a very dark shut in chicago that many of them know at one of the receptions here an italian woman who was delighted with our red roses was also surprised that they could be brought so fresh all the way from italy she would not believe that the roses grew in chicago because she lived here six years and had never seen any one always saw roses in italy think of it she had lived six years within ten blocks of florist shops but had never seen one yes said miss star they lose the beauties and joys of their old homes before they learn what the new can give when we had our first art exhibition an italian said that he didn't know that americans cared for anything but dollars and that looking at pictures was something people did only in italy a greek was overjoyed at seeing a photograph of the acropolis at a whole house he said that before he came to america he had prepared a book of pictures and color of athens because he thought that people in the new country would like to see them at his stand near a big railroad station he had tried to talk to some of those who stopped to buy about the glory that was greece but he had concluded that americans cared for nothing but fruit and the correct change at whole house the greeks italians poles and germans not only find pictures which quicken early memories and affectations but they can give plays of their own country and people the ajax and electra of sofocles have been presented by greeks who felt that they were showing ignorant americans the majesty of the classic drama thanksgiving christmas and other holidays are celebrated by plays and pageants nor are the great days of other lands forgotten garibaldi and mazini who fought for liberty in italy are honored with washington and lincoln old and young alike take part in the dramatic events a blind patriarch who appeared in longfellow's golden legend which was presented one christmas spoke to miss adams of his great joy in the work kind heart he said that was his name for her kind heart it seems to me that i've been waiting all my life to hear some of these things said i am glad we had so many performances for i think i can remember them to the end it is getting very hard for me to listen to reading but the different voices and all made this very plain the music glasses and choruses give so much joy to the people and here it seems possible to bring together in a common feeling those widely separated by tradition and custom music is the universal language of the heart bohemian and polish women sing their tender stirring folk songs the voices of men and women of many lands mingle in shuberts lovely melodies and in the mighty choruses of hondel as miss adams went about among her neighbors she longed to lead them to a perception of the relation between the present and the past if only the young who are impatiently breaking away from all the old country tradition could be made to appreciate what their parents held dear if the fathers and mothers could at the same time understand the complex new order in which their children were struggling to hold their own when one day she saw an old italian woman spinning with distaf and spindle an idea came to her a labor museum that would show the growth of industries in every country from the simplest processes to the elaborate machinery of modern times might serve the purpose the working out of her plan far exceeded her wildest dream russians germans and italians happily foregathered to demonstrate and compare methods of textile work with which they were familiar other activities proved equally interesting the lectures given among the various exhibits met with a warm welcome factory workers who had previously fought shy of everything improving came because they said these lectures were getting next to the stuff you work with all the time whole house has worked not only with the people but for them by trying to secure laws that will improve the conditions under which they labor and live the following incident will speak for the fight that miss adams has made against such evils as child labor and sweatshop work the representatives of a group of manufacturers waited upon her and promised that if she would drop all this nonsense about a sweatshop bill of which she knew nothing certain businessmen would give fifty thousand dollars for her settlement the steady look which the lady of whole house gave the spokesman made him wish that someone else had come with the offer of the bribe we have no ambition said miss adams to make whole house the largest institution in chicago but we are trying to protect our neighbors from evil conditions and if to do that the destruction of our settlement should be necessary we would gladly sing a te duem on its ruins the girl who saw with what she looked on with the eye of her heart had become a leader in the life and the reforms of her time on the whole one writer has said of her the reach of this woman's sympathy and understanding is beyond all comparison wider in its span comprehending all kinds of people than that of any other living person jane adams has won her great influence with people by the simple means of working with them her life and the true whole house the work itself not the building which shelter it give meaning to the saying that labor is the house that love lives in the end end of chapter 11 end of heroines of service by mary rosetta parkman