Part 14

Mother was taken sick in Georgia, where she and Father were spending the winter, the winter of 1915-16, and in March, 1917, she died here at West Park. Father had gone away. Though we all knew she could not recover, we all thought she would live until he returned, but she did not, and from Cuba, where the news reached him, he wrote a beautiful tribute. Later, after his return, we laid her to rest among her family in the little cemetery in Ton Gore, the town where Father first taught school so many years ago. One by one he had seen his family go, and many of his friends. I remember that when I told him of a princess whom Carlyle said outlived her own generation and the next and into the next, he said, "How lonely she must have been!" and much of this loneliness came into his sighs and into his thoughts as he felt himself nearing the grave. As he sat at his desk in the little study, his feet wrapped in an old coat, an open fire snapping in the fireplace, his pen turned more and more to the great question. Even in 1901 he wrote from Roxbury, at the time of the death of his sister Abigail:

I am much depressed, but must not indulge my grief, our band of brothers and sisters has not been broken since Wilson died, thirty-seven years ago. Which of us will go next? In the autumn weather in the autumn of our days we buried our sister beside her husband.

In the same letter, from his own experience he says:

I can understand your want of sympathy with the new college youth. You have learned one of the lessons of life, namely, that we cannot go back--cannot repeat our lives. There is already a gulf between you and those college days. They are of the past. You cannot put yourself in the place of the new men. The soul constantly demands new fields, new experiences.

In 1905 he wrote:

In this mysterious intelligence which rules and pervades nature and which is focussed and gathered up in the mind of man and becomes conscious of itself--what becomes of it at death? Does it fall back again into nature as the wave falls back into the ocean, to be gathered up and focussed in other minds?

During Mother's last illness she was tenderly cared for by an old friend of the family, Dr. Clara Barrus, who then took up the burden of caring for Father, not only safeguarding his health, but helping him in his literary work as well.

On November 23, 1921, we said good-bye in the station in Poughkeepsie. I looked forward to seeing him in the spring with so much joy. But he was very sad, and his hand felt frail in mine. His last letter, written in a broken, running hand, so different from the swift, virile up-and-down hand of thirty years ago, came from California, where he was urging me to join the party.

So characteristic of him and of his love of a dog and all the homely things is the line "Scratch Jack's back for me." I had written him that I was anxious to see smoke coming out of his study chimney once more, and this simple thought gave him much pleasure. But it was not to be.

La Jolla, California, Jany. 26 {1921}

DEAR JULIAN,

Your letters come promptly and are always very welcome. We all keep well. Eleanor is back again and is driving the car. Ursie is getting fat, she drinks only filtered water, as we all do. I have had attacks of my old trouble, but a dose of Epsom salts every morning is fast curing me of them. It is still cold here and has been showery for a week or two. Shriner is painting my portrait and has got a fine thing.

We are booked to return on Mch. 25th. We shall go to Pasadena Feb. 3rd, our address there will be Sierra Madre. It is about six miles from Pasadena in Pasadena Glen. How I wish you could be here for those last two months. Yesterday Shriner took us for a long drive over in El Cajon valley and we saw a wonderful farming country, the finest I have yet seen in California, miles of orange and lemon orchards and grape vines and cattle ranches. For the past week we can see snow on the mountains nearer by than I have ever seen it. We can just see the peak of old Baldie, white as ever. As I write a big airplane is going north out over the sea.

I wish you would have Taroni or some one bring me a load of wood for my study fire.

I am bidding farewell to La Jolla and California. I never expect to return: it is too far, too expensive, and too cold. I long to see the snow again and to feel a genuine cold and escape from this "aguish" chill. I hope you all keep well. Scratch Jack's back for me. Love to Emily and Betty and John,

Your loving father,

J. B.

THE END