PIONEER COURAGE PIONEER COURAGE This incident happened in my grandmother's early Pioneer Life, and was related, many years later, to a very dear friend, Bessie Porter Brough, who wrote this beautiful story of "Courage", and gave it to me, Mary Smith. When William and Mary Hibbert Smith arrived in New York, in July 1856, they were almost entirely without funds. Just a few dollars of the meager amount with which they had left' the old country' was all they had left. They secured a small up-stairs room in a house in the poorer part of the city, and with a three year old daughter, Mary Ann, and a very sick baby, Alma Walker, age three months, they moved in. They bought a little milk for the baby, and a small supply of food for themselves, and rationed it out to make it last as long as possible. They realized that the baby was very ill, but they were strangers in a strange land, friendless and without means. They knew a doctor and medicine were badly needed, but where could they turn for help? The father immediately set out to find work. Any kind of work or the smallest of wages would be gratefully accepted, but no work could he find.. Day after day, he tramped the city over, starting at day break and continuing as long as he could find any place open, or until hunger and exhaustion drove him home to the bleak, empty, little room that held his famished wife, child and stricken baby. Each night he carried home with him a little milk and a very small loaf of bread. Then at dawn he was on the road again. At night they spread out the few remaining coins and prayed that it would last until he could find something to do. Hourly the baby grew worse and finally refused all food, and the parents knew that the end was near. Then, one night, Mr. Smith came home empty handed. The last penny was gone, but he brought 3 the good news that, at last, he had found a few days of work. There had been an accident, in the harbor and men were needed to clear away the wreckage. They were working three shifts daily, and Mr. Smith had been called on the early morning shift. That evening they realized that the end was very near for the baby. There were no lights of any kind, in the house, and the Smiths had just a tiny piece of candle. Although they knew the child was dying, they did not light it until the room was in entire darkness. Then they lit the little stub of candle and sat watching the dying baby and the flickering light and wondering which would go first. How they prayed that the candle would last long enough to see them through to the end. But it was not long until they knew that the baby would out-last the candle, so they blew out the light and sat holding the tiny hand and listening as the little breath came shorter and shorter. Some time after midnight, the mother said, "How is the time". The father struck a match and started the flickering, little flame. Now began that dread watch again. There was still that tormenting question, would the candle out-last the baby? It was such an even race. But the little Spirit passed away, just a few minutes before the flame flickered and went out. A few minutes later, the father, feeling his way around in the dark, found, his coat and hat and not daring to be a minute late for the desperately needed job, stumbled out into the crisp, night air, to start on the long walk to the docks. Before leaving the house, he had told his wife he would send someone to take care of the baby. So now, all alone with her dead child, she sat down in the dark to wait for morning. 4 When the first streak of dawn crept into the room, the mother arose, got a pan of water and a floor cloth and scrubbed one corner of the room, walls and all; then, as the light increased she got out the baby's clothes. Such poor little things they were! But they were clean. She selected the best she had; then she washed and dressed her baby for burial. Spreading a diaper on the clean floor, she laid the baby on it, covered it with another diaper and sat down to wait. Weak from hunger and emotion, weary almost beyond endurance, from the long nights and days before, a wave of despair swept over the broken-hearted mother. "Never", she said, afterward, "in all the long years of hardship and trouble, either before or after that day, have I ever been so near to desperation." About ten o'clock that morning a gentle tap came on the door. "There on the step", she said, "stood the sweetest faced woman I had ever seen." She held in her hands a plate of buttered toast and a cup of tea. "Never", said Mrs. Smith, "had food been so welcome or tasted so good.", and after eating it her trouble seemed a little easier to bear. Soon afternoon another knock came on t he door. When she opened it there stood two men with a little wooden box. "We have come for your dead baby," they said, Mrs. Smith invited them in. They brought the little box and placed it on the floor beside the child? It was just a plain wooden box, no soft pillows, padded lining or ruffled lace, to give it the softened appearance of comfort. The mother knelt on the floor, picked up the tiny form, held it to her heart a minute, kissed it and laid it in the box. Then the men put the lid on and nailed it down. One man picked it up 5 and lifted it to his houlder and started for the street. The mother reached for her bonnet and shawl intending to go along and see her child buried, but the' men stopped her, not unkindly, and said, "0h, you can't go with us. It's a long way and we are busy and must hurry. You couldn't keep up with us, and even if you could walk that far you could never find your way back, and we couldn't bring you home." So the mother stood in the door and watched, the two men go down the street carrying the tiny box on their shoulders, until they turned the corner and were lost in the crowd. And that was the last that mother ever saw or heard of her baby. Told by Mary Hibbert Smith to her dear friend who wrote the story, Bessie Porter Brough.