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The Undertone

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 28, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 64.

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The Undertone

By Lulu Linton

“MOTH-ER,” a boy’s voice called from the dining-room, “Moth-er!”
Mrs. Hanson set her lips in a firm line, and went on with her dish-washing as if she had not heard. She was so very tired that even this name, to which she usually responded so proudly, sounded hateful to her, and she thought, bitterly, “They’re always calling mother. They roll it slowly over their tongues as if to get all the flavor out of it, and I’m so tired.”
“Mother,” came more briskly from the kitchen door, “say, moth-er, will you help me with my ’rithmetic, soon as the dishes are done?”
“No, I will not. You must learn sometime to depend on yourself, and you might as well begin now.”
Joseph William Hanson, Jr., gasped at the unexpected reply, then gulped hard at the lump that filled his throat. He wasn’t going to make a baby of himself before the girls, that was certain; so he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and made a dash for the side door.
Mrs. Hanson jumped nervously as the door slammed, then went on with her task as if nothing unusual had happened. Down deep in her heart she was already sorry that she had answered her big boy in such a cross tone. What if she should be the cause of his running about on the streets at night, as so many boys did. He was her first-born, her big boy! How proudly she had addressed the tiny announcement cards, bearing the dignified name Joseph William Hanson, Jr. To be sure, the name had not been used much, except to decorate these cards; for a mischievous friend of the father’s had gazed into the wee red face, saying: “I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Joe Bill,” and the nickname had stuck.
“Where d’you reckon Joe Bill went?” asked Martia, the slender little girl who was drying the dishes.
“Attend to your work, and stop asking questions,” was the surprising answer, and Martia came so near dropping the plate she held that fat little Elsie, who had not yet been promoted from spoons and forks, giggled gleefully; but one glance from her mother had a quieting effect. Just then, Wayne and Walter, the two younger boys, came racing into the kitchen, squabbling over their football, running into Elsie, who was carrying her tray of silverware to the dining-room table. There was a jingling downpour, and an indignant cry from Elsie. Mrs. Hanson, drying her hands quickly, gave each of the boys a good shaking, sending them from the room with the stern command to stay out.
Mr. Hanson looked up wearily from his paper as the two came rushing back into the sitting-room, and Walter, the littlest one, sobbed out the explanation, “Moth-er is—is—crossways.”
The work in the kitchen was finished in absolute silence. Usually the girls sang, with mother joining in, but the girls were afraid to try it tonight.
Mrs. Hanson was tired. Every inch of her body cried out from utter weariness; and as she thought it over, it seemed to her that she was always tired. It had been her usual baking day, and baking day for her healthy brood was no small affair. Unexpected company on the day before had thrown her cleaning off schedule, adding it to the overfull baking day. If she neglected any of her usual tasks, they piled up on her, she said laughingly, on the days when all went well, and she was feeling at her best. “They pile up in such a big heap that I get covered over and can’t climb out,” was one of her joking ways of expressing it; but she did not feel like joking tonight. Her house had been in order when the older children and the father came home, but they came in out of a steady downpour of rain, bringing dripping umbrellas and raincoats, and muddy overshoes. Then they had attacked the products of her day’s toil with such vigor that there threatened to be a shortage before another baking day. So it wasn’t the proverbial last straw that had caused her temper to break, but a whole bale of last straws.
Martia and Elsie scurried off to the sitting-room to their books as soon as they had finished their tasks in the kitchen. Their father was still buried in his paper, oblivious to the fact that he had the best chair in the best light, and that the sheets of his paper, which he had finished reading and thrown down, had added to the general disorder. Mrs. Hanson glanced about the room with a frown, then snatching up a shawl, she said: “I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait up for me.”
The girls glanced at each other in dismay. With Joe Bill sulking out in the porch swing, and mother away, it gave promise of being a dull evening. The littlest boy began to whimper again, but she went out and closed the door, making no explanations. Out in the misty night, she made her way across the street to the beautiful house on the corner, and Miss Ault, its owner, greeted her unexpected guest cordially.
“But where are the children?” she asked. “Wasn’t it Elsie’s time to come?”
Going to Miss Margaret’s was one of the rewards for good behavior in the Hanson family, and the children had to take turns being mother’s companion on these calls.
“I didn’t tell them I was coming here. I didn’t want them—any of them,” was the weary reply. “I wanted to get away. It has been such a day! I couldn’t make you understand how hard it has been. I’m so tired of being a slave! It would take more than a war to strike off my shackles. I’ve worked so hard, but the house looks as if a whirlwind had struck it. My artistic soul cried out hungrily from where it was buried under all that rubbish, for just one glimpse of your peaceful, beautiful, orderly house, so I came. Please play for me.”
Miss Ault looked pityingly at the small, fair woman who had dropped in a discouraged heap in one corner of the big, soft divan across the room from the grand piano. It was her favorite position while listening to the music made by her gifted friend.
As Miss Ault played, the tired eyes of her listener drank in hungrily the beauty of the big, perfect room. Everything was in order. Its quiet tones all harmonized. Even the lights from the open fire blended with the rich brown of Miss Ault’s dress, and with the coppery tints of her lovely hair. Gradually Mrs. Hanson’s tense nerves relaxed, and the weariness faded from her face. Miss Ault saw, and nodded approvingly, then her supple white fingers drew forth a new melody. Mrs. Hanson listened eagerly. She had never heard her friend play like this. There was something about the beautiful strains that she did not understand.
“What is it?” she cried, as the fingers dropped from the last tender, caressing note. “I never heard you play that before.”
“No, I play this one only for myself. It is called ‘Good Night,’” and Miss Ault’s voice was unsteady.
“There’s a something about it—something different from your usual playing,” Mrs. Hanson insisted. “I can’t explain it, but there was an undertone that tugged at my heartstrings until they ached, and I want to know what you were trying to say to me.”
“Do you really want to know what that undertone was?” Miss Ault’s voice thrilled with intense feeling. “You never heard me play like that because I do not lay my heart bare before even my dearest friend. But tonight I wanted to tug at your heartstrings, I wanted to make them ache, for oh, my dear, you needed it! You have had a hard day,—you say I can’t understand how hard, but I know this, that the day has been infinitely harder for me than for you. A spring day with lowering clouds and rainfall brings memories that stir my heart’s depths; and make me hate the peace and order of this house. Let me try to tell you what that little wordless song means to me. When I play, I see a home, not merely a suite of orderly rooms, and in the home is a busy woman, absorbed, maybe almost submerged, with home duties, but looking forward eagerly to the close of the day that will bring her loved ones all within the heart circle.
“Perhaps the husband and father will come home tired and quiet, but she will understand that he has worked hard for his family, and that home is the one place in all the world where he can relax and rest, feeling that he is understood. Perhaps the children will be careless and thoughtless at times, but they are hers,—her very own, loving her best of all the world; for to them she is the center of all this old world holds in the way of love and happiness. There will be the happy time when the whole circle mingles together, then good-night kisses and clinging arms of sleepy children; then the hour when the two faithful partners sit together, perhaps without words, yet each feeling sure of the other’s love and trust.
“The picture I see in that little song almost drives me mad. You speak of your artistic soul crying out hungrily—what if it was your woman’s heart? Do you ever stop to think of the wonderful joy of being necessary to their happiness? Do you ever recognize the music in that call of ‘Mother’ as they every one begin calling you from the time they enter the door until they have found you? They prove by this very call that you are the home, the all in all of their existence.
“I’d gladly exchange this house, beautiful as it is, in all its perfect order, for just one day in a home like yours,—the kind of home that was to have been mine,—one precious evening with the one who was to have been my partner for life, and with my bairns calling to me as yours call to you. Weariness of body and nerves is hard to bear, but oh, thank God that you have your loved ones to work for! And after this, when your artistic soul cries out for order and quiet, think of the hungry heart across the way starving for love such as you have in abundance every day. I—let me play it again, now that you understand what the undertone means.”
Jessie Hanson listened this time, with tears stealing down her face, washing away all the bitterness, all the thoughts of her work as being slavery. Her heart was swelling with gratitude for the bonds of love that held her close. She was listening, but her heart was across the way, in the house where things showed the marks of use; and she was saying to herself: “I must hurry, for I want to play the children’s good-night song while they sing, and put the littlest boy to bed, and let the girls tell me all about what happened at school, and help Joe Bill with his troublesome ’rithmetic. And then, when they are all in bed, I want to smooth the tired look away from the dear eyes of Joe, Sr., and tell him how happy I am to be his wife and the mother of our little flock.”
At the last note of the song she said simply, “I must go home,” and Miss Ault understood.—Lulu Linton, in the Sunday School Times.