Iowa State University - Bomb Yearbook (Ames, IA)

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tribute to its immortality and empire supreme. Oh, my son, I am just a child of the dust here, and will live more and better than a thousand years in the land of the soul. The child-man said, H Rest now, turn on my arm, and say after me the prayer you used to teach my childish ears- Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, And if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. Like a tired child the mother slept upon the exchanged arm, and the mother heart ofthe man-child wooed and brooded over that life as in childhood days his life had been fostered by the hallowed breast and prayers of the fostering night hours. The breast of a woman bared to nourish her children renders every woman's personage sacred as the bared arm of a man to support the world begets supremest reverence for this HKing of men for al that ! There is a motherhood in a man's heart as in a woman's. Once in a great while the yearning of this motherhood rises to its intensest capacity and has a strength surpassing any other of earth. The truest love of man for woman, as of woman for man, has a sincere mother element that is akin to the heart of God in the wooing of the children of men to the beautiful and the good. Such a heart moved in the child-man that hour, and the troubled breaths of failing years betokened anxiety for iminent dangers. Mother and child were interchangeable. That day of marvelous impressibility, the last of hope for the life of a friend and loved one came. This boy-man, helpless to further effort and stifled by the shut-in-ness, sought the tonic of the out-doors. From the house he started down an old path made by mother's feet. A bug in the way drew him a step half aside as if to crush it. H No, you shall liveg there's enough death in the world alreadyfl And the loathsome bug became .a thing of love. Thrown upon the sod of a summer air he lost himself to be awakened by a childish voice- H Oh, Uncle Will! Look what a pretty grave in this grass. Who made that grave? HAsk God Almighty. What, Uncle Will? HWhy, that mole was made to go under the ground, just like you are made to go on top of the ground. H Oh. And the understanding of the little child seemed gratified in that H Oh. But the man said to himself, H Yes, the whole World is now a graveyard for somebody to Walk on. He turned over with his face to the sky. In grief as in love: HA man Without senti- ment is a mental cripple. However appreciative he may be, it takes forty years to know his own mother. Looking into the fathomless sky his eyes became fixed in that interminable fidelity blue of an indefinite Wonder. The fields of the boyhood neighborhood rose in a resur- rection morn of rebirthed glories-the corn in its springtime, the fields of royal clover, the flowers of life's earliest acquaintanceships appeared re-graced and the lark flew as he used years agone toward the old tree mid-field, turning his head this way and that to see if anyone were looking, and flinging music all about him. But what is all this-mother is dying! The river runs with its sparking, be-gemmed surface recalling nights and days of boyhood glee and seeming to make sincere effort anew to happify the world this day. The sky fillswith Kentucky beneflcence and the air has a human feel, but mother is dying! Into an old cedar near by five bluejays awoke him with their vociferous calls and cries. In size they are indistinguishable, but one is a mother bird. They are four times her capacity yet nourished to the full by her ministry and devotion. Four sit clustered together in silence during the intervals of her absences only the more clamorously to appeal to the life of the mother bird's instinct good. Oh, you dumb birds, these are among the last appeals for aid you will ever make through the mystery of motherhood! You must live by yourselves or die. The season of your dependency is accomplishing and you can never be a broodling again. So our fates, or something called destiny, determines that this mail, 20

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away up into the mountains until that of the highest dweller is scarcely perceptible, so some- where out beyond the paths of human feet and a last trace of a going up on the mountain, begins the infinite approach of the soul of man through the paths of his fellow-beings and down near the trundle-bed Mother and God walk in the same way, worn smooth, like the old school path across the fields, by the frequency of the going to and fro of the mother steps. Do you remember old Penn, the old brindle dog of childhood hours ? Penn had more sense and good comradery than many wise people. I used to think he had a soul. It was a divine privilege to have Penn go with me into the barn of a dark night. I would hear a rat squeal his last, and it drove away ghosts and fearful things to be able to say ' sic'em Penn ! ' He never did me a mean thing in all his play and companionship. I He had such a human feeling and seemed to know when harm came to me, and one time when Ihad an awful hurt the balm of Penn's tongue was the sweetest solace that came to a boy's heart. You know a boy's hurt isimountainous any way. A piece off his foot seems but a hair's breadth distance from the center of life. Penn lay dead under the kitchen table one morning, of heart disease I suppose, and like old dog Rover, when he died he died all over. You went with us chil- dren to the funeral of Penn, and I often think of the tear that was in your eye when we buried him. I never cried holier tears in my life. It seemed to me some part of my heart went into that grave under the apple tree. That tree is dead and the spot is ploughed over, but Penn lives in my heart better than a great many people I have met in my life, Perpetual apple blossoms were none too beautiful nor fragrant over Penn's grave. Wonder where he got his name? It must have been after Pennsylvania, for his heart was as big as a commonwealth. HIn creation time when God Almighty made the dog he started in, I believe, on a dif- ferent creature, and bethinking himself of man's loneliness and of a boy's need for a heel-and- heart companion, and of a creature with sense enough to be still at the right time, he changed his mind and made a dog. Penn was of the elect from the fountain of a boyls world. Oh, those slices of bread and butter you used to give me. The ambrosia of gods couldn't have tasted better to dieties. A slice clear across the loaf with country butter snow deep and maple molasses of lakeful proportions percolated every pore of that slice like honey the flowers of May. It will be a sad day when a boy can't come rushing into the kitchen and say: 'Mother, please give me a piece of bread and butter! ' 'I Here the mother roused from her semi-conscious sleep and said-HThe angels are flying all about, I wonder what they are after. The man replied, H Mother, do you remem- ber when a tiny boy you took me to the bedside of grandmother who was ill to die? I remember the old log cabin and the old fashioned bedstead in the corner with knobs on the top of the posts- the face of that good saint of God glowinglike that of a prophet with the light of goodness during her changing of worlds. My childish curiosity wanted to know what would become of grandmother, and you said, ' The angels are now coming to carry her into the skies. ' It thrilled my fancy and upon my repeated solicitation you opened the door that I might see the angels come out of the sky to convey grandmother's spirit to her good home above. The garden of grandmother's own planting with the old fashioned Howers dressed in living beauty stood a fitting beginning just beyond the doorway for her pathway from earth to sky, and out over Jake Hire's house was a sky fit for the ascension of angels. These angels you see thus are kindred with those that came to the old home in that long ago to take grandmother to her good home. They know the ways of the pathless air and are bidding you not be afraid. The mother said, Oh, my son, this has been my faith and I am only too happy to exchange worlds when when the good Father bids me come. The son replied, HI wish you could live a thousand years, dear mother. You are just ready to be of the most service in the world. There is more good than bad on the earth anyway and you would con- 19

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hitherto dumb as the bird of its future, can never lie upon the mother arm and be a boy again just fora night. In deepest despair and voiceless grief that dried every particle of tear he closed his eyes to the mockings of nature and looked into the conscious severances of his soul. How long he lay thus that summer afternoon it is not lawful to tell, but, finally, as out of the sky a song of childhood's hours sprang into his ears and soul. It was a trundle-bed song of the long ago. It came again at the evening time when the hours of a boy were tired and his spirit restless. It was the mother song in a lullaby and good night. It came with a meaning strong enough for the man, yet sweet and solaceful as for a boy. H The soul for joy unfolds her wings , And loud her lovely Sonnet sings, V- I am safe, safe at home. The 'man sprang to his feet. Everything became accordant. The glories of the child- hood mornings, the inspiriting of the corn, the clover and the refreshing of the flowers of the May, the carols of the lark, the beauty and music of the river, the voices of the mother bird, the gladsome sky and a radiant world proclaimed in melodies infinite and solacies fathomless the rightful accompaniment of that mother's soul to her long home in the skies, and the boy of the night felt the arm of the mother to be the arm of the Almighty for the man of the day. And the old proverb came true: H But it shall come to pass at evening time it shall be light.', Several days afterward this same man passed indifferently down the streets of one of our largest western cities. The bill boards announced a matinee of a play from one of the modern refreshing patches of the infinite out of the country life that God made. He instinc- tively turned with the crowd to the play to cover his grief. In the retracings of the old time songs a singer startled and aroused him to indescribable emotion as she sang: HBackward, turn backward, O time, in your Hight, Make me a child again, just for to-night! Mother come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yoreg Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair, Over my slumbers your loving watch keepg Rock me to sleep, mother-rock me to sleep V' How does this song come now? It seems more than a coincidence! No aisle of cathedral ever seemed more hallowed than the seat of this play house. The song continued: U Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears- Toil without recompense, tears all in vain- Take them, and give me my childhood again! I have grown weary of dust and decay- Weary of Hinging my soul wealth away, Weary of sowing for others to reap- ' Rock me to sleep, mother-rock me to sleep ! More enduring than a wholesome laugh is a manly cry. It clarifies the soul as the snow frees the winter's air of impurities. Uncontrollable pathos swept the soul of the child- man as the music continued: Cver my heart in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone, No other-worship abides and endures- Faithful, unselfish and patient, like yours : None like a mother can charm away pain From the sick soul and the world-weary brain 3 Slumber's soft calm o'er my heavy lids creep - Rock me to sleep, mother--rock me to sleep! 21 Ki