Chapter II: Part 2

The boy's father was busy with some sort of work in the shop and told his little son not to bother. The hired man was doing something to the barnyard fence and told the boy to get out of the way. A carpenter was repairing the roof of the house and the long ladder looked inviting enough, but, the instant the boy's head appeared above the eaves, the man shouted for him to get down and to run and play. Even the new red calf refused to notice him but continued its selfish, absorbing, occupation with wobbly legs braced wide and tail wagging supreme indifference. His very dog had deserted him and had gone away somewhere on business of his own, apparently forgetting the needs of his master. And mother--mother too was busy, as busy as could be with sweeping and dusting and baking and mending and no end of things that must be done.

But somehow mother's work could always wait. At least it could wait long enough for her to look lovingly down into the troubled, discontented, little face while she listened to the plaintive whine: "There's nothin' at all to do. Mamma, tell me--tell me something to do."

Poor little boy in the Yesterdays! Quickly mother's arm went around him. Lovingly she drew him close. And mother's work waited still as she considered the serious problem. There was no feeling of not being wanted in the boy's heart then. As he looked up at her he felt already renewed hope and quickening interest.

Then mother's face brightened, in a way that mother faces do, and the boy's eyes began to shine in eager anticipation. What should he do? Why mother knew the very thing of course. It was the best--the very best--the most interesting thing in all the world for a boy to do. He should build a house for the little girl who lived next door.

Out under the lilac bushes he should build it, in a pretty corner of the yard, where mother, from her window, every now and then, could look out to see how well he was doing and help, perhaps, with careful suggestions. Mother herself would ask the carpenter man for some clean, new boards, some shingles and some nails. And it would all be a secret, between just mother and the boy, until the house was finished and ready and then he should go and bring the little girl and they would see how surprised and glad she would be.

It was wondrous magic those mothers worked in the Yesterdays. In a twinkle, for the boy who could find nothing to do, the world was changed. In a twinkle, there was nothing in all the world worth doing save this one thing--to build a house for the little girl next door.

With might and main he planned and toiled and toiled and planned; building and rebuilding and rebuilding yet again. He cut his fingers and pounded his thumb and stuck his hands full of slivers and minded it not at all so absorbed was he in this best of all Occupations.

But keep it secret! First there was father's smiling face close beside mother's at the window. Then the hired man chanced to pass and paused a moment to make admiring comment. And, later, the carpenter man came around the corner of the house and, when he saw, offered a bit of professional advice and voluntarily contributed another board. Even the boy's dog, as though he had heard the news that the very birds were discussing so freely in the tree tops, came hurrying home to manifest his interest. Keep it secret! How _could_ the boy keep it secret! But the little girl did not know. Until he was almost ready to tell her, the little girl did not know. Almost he was ready to tell her, when--But that belongs to the other part of my story.

About the man in his bare, lonely, room in the great city, the world in its madness raged--struggling, pushing, crowding, jostling, scrambling--a swirling, writhing, mass of life--but the man did not heed. On every side, this life went rushing, roaring, rumbling, thundering, whirring, shrieking, clattering by. But the man noticed the world now no more than it noticed him. In his Yesterdays he had found something to do. He had found the only thing that a man, who knows himself to be a man, can do in truth to his manhood. Again, in his Yesterdays, he was building a house for the little girl who lived next door--the little girl who did not know.

Someday this childish old world will grow weary of its games of war and wealth. Someday it will lose interest in its playthings--banks, and stocks, and markets. Someday it will lose faith in its fairies of fame, its giants of position and power. Then will the disconsolate, forlorn, old world turn to Mother Nature to learn from her that the only Occupation that is of real and lasting worth is the one Occupation in which all of Mother Nature's children have fellowship--the Occupation of home building.

In meadow and forest and field; in garden and grove and hedge and bush; in mountain and plain and desert and sea; in hollow logs; amid swaying branches; in rocky dens and earthy burrows; high among towering cliffs and mighty crags; low in the marsh grass and among reeds and rushes; in stone walls; in fence corners; in tufts of grass and tiny shrubs; among the flowers and swinging vines; everywhere--everywhere--in all this great, round, world, Mother's children all are occupied in home building--occupied in this and nothing more. This is the one thing that Mother's children, in all the ages since the beginning, have found worth doing. One wayward child alone is occupied just now, seemingly, with everything _but_ home building. Man seems to be doing everything these days but the one thing that must be the foundation work of all. But never mind--homebuilding will be the world's work at the last. When all the playthings of childhood and all the childish games of men have failed, homebuilding will endure. Occupation must in the end mean home building or it is meaningless.

And the din, the confusion, the struggle, the turmoil of life--when it all means to men the building of homes and nothing more; when the efforts of men, the ambitions of men, the labor and toil of men are all to make homes for the little girls next door; then, will Mother Nature smile upon her boys and God, I am sure, will smile upon them, too.

The man came back from his Yesterdays with a new heart, with new courage and determination, and the next day he found something to do.

I do not know what it was that the man found to do--_that_ is not my story.

* * * * *

It was nearly the time of falling leaves when the woman, who knew herself to be a woman, knocked at one of those doors, at which she did not wish to knock, and was admitted.

It does not matter which of the doors it was. I cannot tell you what work it was that the woman found to do. What mattered to her--and to the world if only the world would understand--was this: that she was forced by the customs of the age and by necessity to enter a life that her woman heart did not desire. While her dreams were of the life that lies beyond the old, old, door that has stood open since the beginning; while she waited on the threshold and longed to go in; she was forced to turn aside, to seek admittance at one of those other doors. This it is that matters--matters greatly. Perhaps only God who made the woman heart and who Himself set that door open wide--perhaps only God knows how greatly it matters.

Of course, if the woman had not known herself to be a woman, it would have made little difference either to her or to the world.

And the woman when she had joined that great company of women, who, in these modern days labor behind the doors through which they must go alone, found them to be good women--good and brave and true. And most of them, she found, were in that great company of workers just as she was there--just as every woman who knows her womanhood is there--through circumstances, the custom of the age, necessity. The only saving thing about it all is this: their woman hearts are somewhere else.

And the woman found also that, while the door opened readily enough to her knock, she was received without a welcome. Through that other door, the door that God himself has opened, she would have entered into a joyous welcome--she would have been received with gladness, with rejoicing, with holiest love, and highest honor. To her, in the world that lies beyond the old, old, door, would have been rendered homage and reverence second only to that given to God Himself. _There,_ she would have been received as a _woman_ for her _womanhood;_ she would have been given first place among all created things. But the world into which she entered alone did not so receive her. It received her coldly. Its manner said quite plainly: "Why are you here? What do you want?" It said: "There is no sentiment here, no love, no reverence, no homage; there is only business here, only law, only figures and facts."

This world was not unkind to her, but it did not receive her as a woman. It could not. It did not value her _womanhood_. Womanhood has no value there. It valued her clear brain, her physical strength, her skillful hands, her willing feet, her ready wit: but her womanhood it ignored. The most priceless gift of the Creator to his creatures--the one thing without which all human effort would be in vain, no Christian prayer would be possible; the one thing without which mankind would perish from the earth--this world, into which the woman went, rejected. But the things that belonged to her womanhood--the charm of her manner; the beauty of her face and form; the appeal of her sex; the quick intuitions of her soul--all these this world received and upon them put a price. They became not forces to be used by her in wifehood and motherhood but commercial assets, valued in dollars, worth a certain price upon the woman labor market in the business world.

And the woman's heart, because she knew herself to be a woman, rebelled at this buying and selling the things of her womanhood. These things she rightly felt to be above price--far, far, above price. They were the things of her wifehood and motherhood. They were given her to be used by her in love, in mating, in bearing and rearing children, in the giving of life to the world.

The things of a woman's womanhood are as far above price as life itself to which they belong. Even as color and perfume belong to the flowers; even as the music of the birds belongs to the feathery songsters; even as the blue belongs to the sky, and the light to the stars; so these graces of a woman belong to her and to the mission of her womanhood are sacred. They are hers to be used in her holy office of womanhood; by her alone, without price, for the glory and honor of life and the future of the race. So the woman's heart rebelled, but secretly, instinctively, almost unconsciously. Open rebellion would have made it impossible for her to remain in the world into which she entered because of her necessity and the custom of the age.

She found, too, that this world into which she had entered was very courteous, that it was even considerate and kind--as considerate and kind as it was possible to be--for it seemed to understand her position quite as well as she herself understood it. And this world paid her very well for the services she was asked to render. But it asked of her no favors. It accorded her no honors. It sought her with no offering. And, because of this, the woman, in the heart of her womanhood, felt ashamed and humiliated.

It is the right of womanhood to bestow favors. It is a woman's right to be honored above all creatures of earth. Since the beginning of life itself her sex has been so honored--has received the offerings from life. Mankind, alone, has at times attempted to change this law but has never quite succeeded. Mankind never can fully succeed in this because woman holds life itself in her keeping. So the woman felt that her womanhood was humiliated and shamed. But she hid this feeling also, hid it carefully, buried it deeply, because she knew that if she did not it would betray her and she would not be permitted to remain in the world into which necessity forced her. To the woman, it seemed that the world into which she had gone, itself, felt her shame and humiliation. That, in secret, it desired to ask of her; to accord to her honors; to seek her with offerings. But this world could not do these things because it dared not recognize her womanhood. When a woman goes into that world into which she must go alone, she leaves her womanhood behind. Her womanhood is not received there.

But most of all, the thing that troubled the woman was this: the risk she ran in entering into that life behind the door at which she had sought admittance. She saw that there was danger there--grave danger--to her womanhood. In the busy, ceaseless, activity of that life there would be little time for her waiting beside the old, old, door. The exacting demands of her work, or profession, or calling, or business, would leave little leisure for the meditation and reflection that is so large a part of the preparation necessary for entrance into that other world of which she had dreamed. Constant contact with the unemotional facts and figures of that life which sets a market value upon the sacred things of womanhood would make it ever more difficult for her to dream of love. There was grave danger that interest and enthusiasm in other things would supplant her longing for wifehood and motherhood. She feared that in her Occupation she might not know, when he came, that one who was to cross the threshold with her into the life of her dreams--that, indeed, he might come and go again while she was busy with other things. She feared that she would come to accept the commercial valuation of the things that belonged to her womanhood and thus forget their higher, holier, use and that the continued rejection of her womanhood would, in time, lead her to think of it lightly, as incidental rather than supreme. There was real danger that she would lose her desire to be sought, to give, to receive offerings; that she would cease to rebel secretly; that she would no longer feel humiliated at her position. She feared in short this danger--the gravest danger to her womanhood and thus to all that womankind holds in her keeping--that she would come to feel contented, satisfied, and happy, in being a part of the world into which she was forced to go by the custom of the age and by necessity. Because this woman knew herself to be a woman she feared this. If she had not come to know her womanhood she would not have feared it. Neither would it have mattered.

The woman was thinking of these things that Saturday afternoon as she walked homeward from her work. She often walked to her home on Saturday afternoons, when there was time, for she was strong and vigorous, with an abundance of good red woman blood in her veins, and loved the free movement in the open air.

Perhaps, though, it is not exact to say that she was _thinking_ of these things. The better word would be _feeling_. She was not thinking of them as I have set them down: but she was feeling them all. She was conscious of them, just as she was conscious of the dead brown leaves that drifted across her path, though she was not thinking of the leaves. She felt them as she felt the breath of fall in the puff of air that drifted the leaves: but she did not put what she felt into words. So seldom do the things that women feel get themselves put into words.

The young woman had chosen a street that led in the direction of her home through one of the city's smaller parks, and, as she went, the people she met turned often to look after her for she was good to look at. She walked strongly but with a step as light as it was firm and free; and, breathing deeply with the healthful exercise, her cheeks were flushed with rosy color, her eyes shone, her countenance--her every glance and movement--betrayed a strong and perfect womanhood--a womanhood that, rightly understood, is wealth that the race and age can ill afford to squander.

Coming to the park, she walked more slowly and, after a little, seated herself on a bench to watch the squirrels that were playing nearby. The foliage had already lost its summer freshness though here and there a tree or bush made brave attempt to retain its garb of green. Not a few brown leaves whirled helplessly about--the first of unnumbered myriads that soon would be offered by the dying summer in tribute to winter's conquering power. The sun was still warm but the air had in it a subtle flavor that seemed a blending of the coming season with the season that was almost gone.

Near the farther entrance to the little park, a carpenter was repairing the roof of a house and, from where she sat, the woman could see the long ladder resting against the eaves. A boy with his shepherd dog came romping along the walk under the trees as irresponsible as the drifting leaves. The squirrels scampered away; the boy and dog whirled on; and the woman, from the world into which she had entered because she must, went far away into the world of childhood. From her day of toil in a world that denied her womanhood she went back into her Yesterdays where womanhood--motherhood--was supreme. Perhaps it was that subtle flavor in the air that did it; or it may have been the boy and his dog as they whirled past--care free as the drifting brown leaves; or perhaps it was the sight of the man repairing the roof of the house with his long ladder resting against the eaves: the woman herself could not have told what it was, but, whatever it was, she slipped away to one of the brightest, happiest, days in all her Yesterdays.

But, for a little while, that day was not at all bright and happy. It started out all right then, little by little, everything went wrong; and then it changed again and became one of the best of all her Yesterdays. The day went wrong for a little while at first because everything in the house was being taken up, or taken down, beaten, shaken, scrubbed or dusted; everything was being arranged or disarranged and rearranged again. Surely there was never such confusion, so it seemed to the little girl, in any home in all the world. Every time that she would get herself nicely settled with her dolls she would be forced to move again; until there was in the whole, busy, bustling place no corner at all where she was not in somebody's way. When she would have entered into the confusion and helped to straighten things out, the woman told her, rather sharply, to go away, and declared that her efforts to help only made things worse.

Out in the garden, at the opening in the hedge, she called and called and waited and waited for the boy. But the boy did not answer. He was too busy, she thought, to care about her. She felt quite sure that he did not even want her to help in whatever it was that he was doing. Perhaps, she thought wistfully, peering through the little green tunnel, perhaps if she could go and find him he might--when he saw how miserable and lonely she was--he might be kind. But to go through the hedge was forbidden, except when mother said she might.

Sorrowfully she turned away to seek the kitchen where the cook was busy with the week's baking. But the cook, when the little girl offered to roll the pie crust or stir the frosting for the cake, was hurried and cross and declared that the little girl could not help but only hinder and that it would be better for her not to get in the way.

Once more, in a favorite corner of the big front porch, she was just beginning to find some comfort with her doll when the woman with the broom forced her to move again.

Poor little girl! What could she do under such trying circumstances--what indeed but go to mother. All the way up the long stairs she went to where mother was as busy as ever a mother could be doing something with a lot of things that were piled all over the room. But mother, when she saw the tear stained little face, understood in a flash and put aside whatever it was that she was doing, quickly, and held the little girl, dolly and all, close in her mother arms until the feeling of being in the way and of not being wanted was all gone. And, when the tears were quite dry, mother said, so gently that it did not hurt, "No dearie, I'm afraid you can't help mother now because mother's girl is too little to understand what it is that mother is doing. But I'll tell you something that you _can_ do. Mother will give you some things from the pantry and you may go over to see the little boy. And I am as sure, as sure can be, that, when he sees all the nice things you have, he will play keeping house with you."

So the little girl in the Yesterdays, with her treasures from mother's pantry, went out across the garden and through the hedge to find the boy. Very carefully she went through the opening in the hedge so that she would lose none of her treasures. And oh, the joy of it! The splendid wonder of it! She found that the boy had built a house--all by himself he had built it--with real boards, and had furnished it with tiny chairs and tables made from boxes. Complete it was, even to a beautiful strip of carpet on the floor and a shelf on which to put the dishes. Then, indeed, when the boy told her how he had made the house for her--just for her--and how it was to have been a surprise; and that she had come just in time because if she tad come sooner it would have spoiled the fun--the heart of the little girl overflowed with gladness. And to think that all the time she was feeling so not wanted and in the way the boy was doing _this_ and all for her! Did her mother know? She rather guessed that she did; mothers have such a marvelous way of knowing everything, particularly the nicest things.

So the little girl gave the boy all the treasures that she had brought so carefully and they had great fun eating them together; and all the rest of that day they played "keephouse." And this is why that day was among the best of all the woman's Yesterdays.

Several men going home from work passed the spot where the young woman sat. Then a group of shop girls followed; then another group and, in turn, two women from an office that did not close early on Saturdays. After them a young girl who looked very tired came walking alone, and then there were more men and women in a seemingly endless procession. And so many girls and women there were in the procession that the woman, as she came back from her Yesterdays, wondered who was left to make homes for the world.

The sun was falling now in long bars and shafts of light between the buildings and the trees, and the windows of the house where the man had been fixing the roof were blazing as if in flames. The man had taken down his ladder and gone away. It was time the young woman was going home. And as she went, joining the procession of laborers, her heart was filled with longing--with longing and with hope. The boy of her Yesterdays lived only in those days that were gone. He had no place in the dreams of her womanhood. He was only the playmate of the little girl. Even as those years were gone the boy had gone out of her life. But somewhere, perhaps, that one who was to go with her through the old, old, open door was even then building for her a home--their home. Perhaps, some day, an all wise Mother Nature would tell her to leave the world that gave her no welcome--that could not recognize her womanhood--that made her heart rebel in humiliation and shame--and go to do her woman's work.

Very carefully would she go when the time came, taking all the treasures of her womanhood. She would go very carefully that none of her treasures be lost.

KNOWLEDGE

The green of the pastures and the gold of the fields was buried so deeply under banks of snow that no one could say: "Here the cattle fed and the buttercups grew; there the grain was harvested; here the corn stood in shocks; there the daisies and meadow grass sheltered the nest of the bobo-link." As death calls alike the least and the greatest back to the dust from which they came, so winter laid over the varied and changing scenes of summer a cold, white, shroud of wearisome sameness. The birds were hundreds of miles away in their sunny southland haunts. The bees, the butterflies, and many of the tiny wood folk, were all snugly tucked in their winter beds, dreaming, perhaps, as they slept, of the sunshiny summer days. In the garden the wind had heaped a great drift high against the hedge on the boy's side, and, on the little girl's side, the cherry tree in the corner stood shivering in its nakedness with bare arms uplifted as though praying for mercy to the stinging cold wind.

In the city the snow, as fast as it fell, was stained by soot and grime and lay in the streets a mass of filth. The breath of the laboring truck horses arose from their wide nostrils like clouds of steam and, in the icy air, covered their breasts and shoulders and sides with a coat of white frost. The newsboys and vendors of pencils and shoestrings shivered in nooks and corners and doorways and, as the people went with heads bent low before the freezing blast that swirled through the narrow canyons between the tall buildings, the snowy pavement squeaked loudly under their feet.

And the man who had found something to do, from his Occupation, began to acquire Knowledge. In doing things, he began to know things.

But the man had to gain first a knowledge of Knowledge. He first had to learn this: that a man might know all about a thing without ever knowing the thing itself. He had to understand that Knowledge is not knowing _about_ a thing but knowing the _thing_. When first he had dreamed his manhood dreams, before he had found something to do, the man, quite modestly, thought that he knew a great deal. In his school days, he had exhausted many text books and had passed many creditable examinations upon many subjects and so he had thought that he knew a great deal. And he did. He knew a great deal _about_ things. But when he had found something to do, and had tried to do it, he found also very quickly that, although he knew so much about the thing he had to do, he knew very, very, little of the thing itself and that only knowledge of the thing itself could ever help him to realize his dreams.

From his Occupation, he learned this also: that Knowledge is not what some other man knows and tells you but what the thing that you have found to do makes known to you. Knowledge is not told, _cannot_ be told, to one by another, even though that other has it abundantly for, to the one to whom it is told, it remains ever what someone else knows. What the thing that a man finds to do makes known to him, _that_ is Knowledge. So Knowledge is to be had not from books alone but rather from Life. So idleness is a vicious ignorance and those who do the most are wisest.

Before he had found something to do the man had called himself a thinker. But when he tried to do the thing that he had found to do, he quickly realized that he had only thought that he thought. He found that he was not at all a thinker but a listener--a receiver--a rememberer. In his school days, the thoughts of others were offered him and he, because he had accepted them, called them his own. He came, now, to understand that thinking is not accepting the thoughts of others but finding thoughts of your own in whatever it is that you have found to do.

Thinking the thoughts of others is a delightful pastime and profitable but it is not really thinking. Also, if one be blessed with a good memory, he may thus cheaply acquire a reputation for great wisdom; just as one, if he happens to be born with a nose of uncommon length or bigness, may attract the attention of the world. But no one should deceive himself. A man because he is able, better than the multitude, to repeat the thoughts of other men must not therefore think himself a better thinker than the crowd. No more should the one with the uncommon nose flatter himself that he is necessarily handsome or distinguished in appearance because the people notice him. He who attracts the attention of the world should inquire most carefully into the reason for the gathering of the crowd; for a crowd will gather as readily to listen to a mountebank as to hear an angel from heaven.

To repeat what others have thought is not at all evidence that he who remembers is thinking. Great thoughts are often repeated thoughtlessly. A man's Occupation betrays him or establishes his claim to Knowledge. That which a man does proclaims that which he thinks or in his thoughtlessness finds him out.

Of course, when the man had learned this, he said at first, quite wrongly, that his school days were wasted. He said that what he had called his education was all a mistake--that it was vanity only and wholly worthless. But, as he went on gaining ever more and more Knowledge from the thing that he was doing, and, through that thing, of many other things, he came to understand that his school days were not wasted but very well spent indeed. He came to see that what he had called education was not a mistake. He came to understand that what was wrong was this: he had considered his education complete, finished, when he had only been prepared to begin. He had considered his schooling as an end to be gained when it was only a means to the end. He had considered his learning as wealth to hold when it was capital to invest. He had mistaken the thoughts that he received from others for Knowledge when they were given him only to inspire and to help him in acquiring Knowledge.

And then, of this knowledge of Knowledge gained by the man from his Occupation, there was born in him a mighty passion, a burning desire. It was the passion for Knowledge. It was the desire to know. To know the thing that he had found to do was not enough. He determined to use that knowledge to gain Knowledge of many other things. He felt within himself a new strength stirring--the strength of thought. He saw that knowledge of things led ever to more knowledge, even as link to link in a golden chain. One end of the chain he held in his Occupation; the other was somewhere, far beyond his sight, hidden in the mists that shroud the Infinite Fact, fast to the mighty secret of Life itself. Link by link, he determined to follow the chain. From knowing things to knowledge of other things he would go even until he held in his grip the last link--until he held the key to the riddle--until he knew the answer to the sum of Life.

And facts--cold, uncompromising, all powerful, unanswerable facts--should give him this mastering knowledge of Life. For him there should be no sentiment to deceive, no illusion to beguile, no fancy to lead astray. As resistlessly as the winter, with snowflake upon snowflake, had buried all the delightful vagaries of summer, so this man, in his passion for Knowledge, would have buried all the charming inconsistencies, the beautiful inaccuracies, the lovely pretenses of Life. The illusions, the sentiment, the fancies, the poetry of Life, he would have buried under the icy sameness of his facts, even as the flowers and grasses were hidden under winter's shroud of snow. But he could not. Under the snow, summer still lived. Under the cold facts of Life, the tender sentiments, the fond fancies, the dear illusions have strength even as the flowers and grasses.

I do not know what it was that brought it about. It does not matter what it was. Perhaps it was the sight of some boys coasting down a little hill, on a side street, near where the man lived at this time: perhaps it was a group of children who, on their way home from school, were waging a merry snow fight: or, perhaps, it was the man's own effort to acquire Knowledge: or, it may be, that his brain was weary, that the way of Knowledge seemed over long, that the links in the golden chain were many and passed all too slowly through his hand--I do not know--but, whatever it was that did it, the man, as he sat before his fire that winter evening with a too solid and substantial book, slipped away from his grown up world of facts back into the no less real world of childhood, back into his Yesterdays--to a school day in his Yesterdays.

Once again he made his way in the morning to the little schoolhouse that stood half way up a long hill, in the edge of a bit of timber, nearly two miles from his home. The yard, beaten smooth and hard by many bare and childish feet, was separated from the timber by a rail fence but was left open in front to any stray horses or cattle that, wandering down the road, might be tempted to rest a while in the shade of a great tree that stood near the center of the little clearing. The stumps of the other forest beauties that had once, like this tree, tossed their branches in the sunlight were still holding the places that God had given them and made fine seats for the girls or bases for the boys when they played ball at recess or noon. And often, when the shouting youngsters had been called from their sports by the rapping of the teacher's ruler at the door and only the busy hum of their childish voices came floating through the open windows, a venturesome squirrel or a saucy chipmunk would creep stealthily along the fence, stopping now and then to sit bolt upright with tail in air to look and listen. Then suddenly, at sight of a laughing face at the window or the appearance of some boy who had gained the coveted permission to get a bucket of water, the little visitor would whisk away again like a flash and, with a warning chatter to his mate, would seek safety among the leaves and branches of the forest only to reappear once more when all was quiet until, at last, made bold by many trials, he would leap from the fence and scamper across the yard to take possession of the tallest stump as though he himself were a schoolboy. Sometimes a crow, after carefully watching the place for a little while from a safe position on the fence across the road, would fly quietly down to look for choice bits dropped from the dinner baskets of the children. Or again, a long, lazy, black snake would crawl across the yard to search for the little mice that lived in the foundation of the house and in the corners of the fence. Or, perhaps, a chicken hawk, that had been sailing on outstretched wings in ever narrowing circles, would drop from the blue sky to claim his share of the plunder only to be frightened away again by the sound of the teacher's voice raised in sharp rebuke of some mischievous urchin.

The schoolhouse was not a large building nor was it, in the least, imposing. It was built of wood with a foundation of rough stone and there were heavy shutters which were always carefully closed at night to keep out the tramps who might seek a lodging place within. And there was a woodshed, too, where the boys romped upon rainy days and where was fought many a schoolboy battle for youthful love and honor. The building had once been painted white but the storm and sunshine of many months had worn away the paint, and there remained only the dark, weather stained, boards save beneath the cornice and the window ledge where one might still find traces of its former glory. The chimney, too, was old and some of the bricks had crumbled and fallen from the top which made it look ragged against the sky. And the steps and threshold were worn very thin--very, very, thin.

Wearied with his passion for Knowledge; tired of his cold facts; hungering in his heart for a bit of wholesome sentiment as one in winter hungers for the summer flowers; the man who sat before his fire that night, with a too heavy and substantial book, crossed once more with childish feet the worn threshold of the old schoolhouse and stood within the entry where hung the hats and dinner baskets of his mates. They looked very familiar to him--those hats--and, as he saw them in his memory, each offered mute testimony to its owner's disposition and rank in childhood's world. There were broad brimmed straws that belonged to the patient, plodding, boys and caps that seemed made to set far back on the heads of the boisterous lads. There was the old slouch felt of the poor boy who did chores for his board and the brimless hat of the bully of the school. There were the trim sailors of the good little boys and the head gear of his own particular chum. And there--the man who sought Knowledge only in facts smiled at the fire and a fond light came into his eyes while his too solid and substantial hook slipped unheeded to the floor--there was a sunbonnet of blue checkered gingham hanging by its long strings from a hook near the window.

With fast beating heart, the boy saw that the next hook was vacant and placing his own well worn straw beside the bonnet he wondered if she would know whose hat it was. And then once more, with reluctant hand, the seeker of Knowledge, in his Yesterdays, pushed open the door leading to the one room in the building and, with a sigh of regret, passed from the bright sunlight of boyish freedom to the shadow of his childish task.

There were neither tinted walls nor polished woodwork in that hall of learning. But, thank God, learning does not depend upon tinted walls or polished woodwork. Indeed it seems that rude rafters and unplastered ceilings most often covers the head of learning. The humble cottage of the farmer shelters many a true scholar and statesmen are bred in log cabins. Neither was there a furnace with mysterious cranks and chains nor steam pipes nor radiators. But, when the cold weather came, the room was warmed by an old sheet iron stove that stood near the center of the building with an armful of wood in a box nearby and the kindlings for to-morrow's fire drying on the floor beneath. The desks were of soft pine, without paint or varnish, but carved with many a quaint and curious figure by jack knives in the hands of ambitious youngsters. The seats were rude benches worn smooth and shiny. A water bucket had its place near the door and a rusty tin dipper that leaked quite badly hung from a nail in the casing.

And hanging upon the dingy wall were the old maps and charts that, torn and soiled by long usage, had patiently guided generations of boys and girls through the mysteries of lands and seas, icebergs, trade winds, deserts, and plains. Still patiently they marked for the boy's bewildered brain latitude and longitude, the tropic of cancer, the arctic circle, and the poles. Were they hanging there still? the man wondered. Were they still patiently leading the way through a wilderness of islands and peninsulas, capes and continents, rivers, lakes, and sounds? Or had they, in the years that had gone since he looked upon their learned faces, been sunk to oblivion in the depths of their own oceans by the weight of their own mountain ranges? And, suddenly, the man who sought Knowledge in facts found himself wishing in his heart that some gracious being would make for older children maps and charts that they might know where flow the rivers of prosperity, where rise the mountains of fame, where ripple the lakes of love, where sleep the valleys of rest, or where thunders the ocean of truth.

At one end of the old schoolroom, behind the teacher's desk, was a blackboard with its accompanying chalk, erasers, rulers, and bits of string. To the boy, that blackboard was a trial, a temptation, a vindication, or a betrayal. Often, as he sat with his class on the long recitation seat that faced the teacher's desk, with half studied lesson, but with bright hopes of passing the twenty minutes safely, before the slow hand of the old clock had marked but half the time, his hopes would be blasted by a call to the board where he would bring upon himself the ridicule of his schoolmates, the condemnation of the teacher, and would take his seat to hear, with burning cheeks, the awful sentence: "You may study your lesson after school."

After school--sorrowfully the boy saw the others passing from the room, leaving him behind. And the last to go, glancing back with tear dimmed eyes, was the little girl. Sadly he listened to the voices in the entry and heard their shouts as they burst out doors; and--suddenly, his heart beat quicker and his cheeks burned--_that_ was her voice!

Clear and sweet through the open window of the man's memory it came--the voice of his little girl mate of the Yesterdays.

She was standing on the worn threshold of the old schoolhouse, calling to her friends to wait; and the boy knew that she was lingering there for him and that she called to her companions loudly so that he would understand.

But the teacher knew it too and bade the little girl go home.

Then, while the boy listened to that sweet voice growing fainter and fainter in the distance; while he saw her, in his fancy, walking slowly, lagging behind her companions, looking back for him; the teacher talked to him very seriously about the value of his opportunities; told him that to acquire an education was his duty; sought to impress upon him that the most important thing in life was Knowledge.

Of course, thought the boy, teacher must know. And, thinking this, he felt himself to be a very bad boy, indeed; because, in his heart, he knew that he would have, that moment, given up every chance of an education; he would have sacrificed every hope of wisdom; he would have thrown away all Knowledge and heaven itself just to be walking down the road with the little girl. And he must have been a little had--that boy--because also, most ardently, did he wish that he was big enough to thrash the teacher or whoever it was that invented blackboards.

As the man stooped to take up again his too solid and substantial book, he felt that he was but a schoolboy still. To him, the world had become but a great blackboard. In his private life or in conversation with a friend, he might hide his poorly prepared lesson behind a show of fine talk, a pet quotation, or an air of learning; but when he was forced to put what he knew where all men might see--when he was made to write his sentences in books or papers or compelled to do his problems in the business world--then it was that his lack of preparation was discovered, and that he brought upon himself the ridicule or condemnation of his fellows. Unconsciously he listened, half expecting to hear again the old familiar sentence: "You may study your lesson after school." After school--would there be any after school, he wondered.

"And, after all, was that teacher in his Yesterdays right?" the man asked himself. "Was Knowledge the most important thing in life? After all, was that schoolboy of the Yesterdays such a bad schoolboy because, in his boyish heart, he rebelled against the tasks that kept him from his schoolmates and from the companionship of the little girl? Was that boy so bad because he wished that he was big enough to thrash whoever it was that invented blackboards, to rob schoolboys of their schoolgirl mates?"

Suppose--the man asked himself, as he laid aside the too heavy and substantial book and looked into the fire again--suppose, that, after a lifetime devoted to the pursuit of Knowledge, there should be no one, when school time was over, to linger on the worn old threshold for him? Suppose he should be forced, in the late afternoon, to go down the homeward road alone? Could it be truly said that his manhood years had been well spent? Could any number of accumulated facts satisfy him if the hour was a lonely hour when school closed for the day? Might it not be that there is a Knowledge to be gained from Life that is of more value than the wintry Knowledge of facts?

As the man looked back into his Yesterdays, the blackboard and its condemnation mattered little to him. It was the going home alone that mattered. What, he wondered, would matter most when, at last, he could look back upon his grown up school days--the world blackboard with its approval or its condemnation, or the going home alone?

* * * * *

It was the time of melting snow. The top of the orchard hill was a faded brown patch as though, on a shoulder of winter's coat, the season had worn a hole quite through; while the fields of the fall plowing made spots that looked pitifully thin and threadbare; and the creek, below the house where the little girl lived, was a long dark line looking for all the world like a rip where the icy stitching of a seam in the once proud garment had, at last, given way. But the drift in the garden on the boy's side of the hedge was still piled high against the barrier of thickly interwoven branches and twigs and the cherry tree, in its shivering nakedness, seemed to be pleading, now, for spring to come quickly.

The woman who knew herself to be a woman did not attempt to walk home from her work that Saturday afternoon. The streets were too muddy and she was later than usual because of some extra work.

Of her Occupation--of the world into which she had gone--the woman also was gaining Knowledge. Though, she did not learn from choice but because she must. And she learned of her work only what was needful for her to know that she might hold her place. She had no desire to know more. Because the woman already knew the supreme thing, she had no desire to learn more of her Occupation than she must. Already she knew her womanhood, and that, to a woman who knows, is the supreme thing. For a woman with understanding there is no Knowledge greater than this: the knowledge of her womanhood. There was born in her no passion for knowledge of things. She burned with no desire to follow the golden chain, link by link, to its hidden end. In her womanhood she held already the answer to the sum of Life.

The passion of her womanhood was not to _know_ but to _trust_--not _facts_ but _faith_--not _evidence_ but _belief_--not _reason_ but _emotion_. Her desire was not to take from the world by the power of Knowledge but to receive from the world by right of her sex and love. She did not crave the independence of great learning but longed, rather, for the prouder dependence of a true womanhood. Out of her woman heart's fullness she pitied and fed the poor mendicant without inquiring into the economic condition that made him a beggar. Her situation, she accepted with secret rebellion, with hidden shame and humiliation in her heart, but never asked why the age forced her into such a position. For affection, for sympathy, for confidence, and understanding, she hungered with a woman hunger; and, through her hunger for these, from the men and women with whom she labored she gained Knowledge of Life. Of the lives of her fellow workers--of the women who had entered that world, even as she had entered it, because they must--of the men whom she came to know under circumstances that forbade recognition of her womanhood--she gained Knowledge; and the Knowledge she gained was this: that the world is a world of hungry hearts.

I do not know just what the circumstances were under which the woman learned this. I do not know what her Occupation was nor who her friends were; nor can I tell in detail of the peculiar incidents that led to this Knowledge. Such things are not of my story. This, only, belongs to my story: the woman learned that the world is a world of hungry hearts. Cold and cruel and calculating and bold, fighting desperately, merciless, and menacing, the world is but a hungry hearted world with it all. This, when a woman knows it, is, for her, a saving Knowledge. Just to the degree that a woman knows this, she is wise above all men--wise with a wisdom that men cannot attain. Just to the degree that a woman is ignorant of this, she is unlearned in the world's best wisdom.

Long before she knocked at the door of the world into which she had been admitted, upon condition that she left her womanhood without, the woman had thought herself wise in knowledge of mankind. In her school days, text books and lessons had meant little to her beside the friendship of her schoolmates. At her graduation she had considered her life education complete. She thought, modestly, that she was fitted for a woman's place in life. And that which she learned first from the world into which she had gone was this: that her knowledge of life was very, very, meager; that there were many, many, things about men and women that she did not know.

School could fit her only for the fancy work of Life: plain sewing she must learn of Life itself. School had made her highly ornamental: Life must make her useful. School had developed her capacity for pleasure and enjoyment: not until Life had developed her capacity for sorrow and pain would her education be complete. School had taught her to speak, to dress, and to act correctly: Life must teach her to feel. School had trained her mind to appreciate: Life must teach her to sympathize. School had made her a lady: Life must make the lady a woman.