p. 12 | PLAY I WAS DEAD by Mrs. McVean Adams

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 29, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 39.

“PLAY I WAS DEAD.”

By Mrs. McVean Adams

Mrs. Bond sat beside her bedroom window, running her sewing machine with nervous haste. Two little children were playing in the yard.

She could hear their voices as she sewed. “Now, Teddie, you old sweetness, sit right still while I run in and ask ‘mover’ if we can go over to Gracie’s;” and two kisses were given to baby Teddie by the motherly little sister Susie. Then the little girl came dancing into the room, and said, “O mama! can I take baby over to Gracie’s? She’s got a new swing, and she’s been calling over for us to come.” A little coaxing arm was stealing around the mother’s neck. “O dear!” said the busy mother, “see how you’ve made me break my thread! No, you stay right here in our own yard. How many times must I tell you before you will mind! I should think you might help me by playing pretty with brother, so that I could get this dress done for you to wear tomorrow. All the rest of the girls will have on white dresses, and here it is almost 5 o’clock, and you know your father always wants to find supper ready, and I have one more ruffle to put on the skirt yet.”

Little Susie went slowly out, away from the flood of petulant words, and presently her mother heard her voice again under the window: “Never mind, Teddie; we’ll go sometime when ‘moverdy’ isn’t nervous. I’ll tell you a new play. Let’s play I was dead. I’ll lie here, and you cover me up with leaves, like ‘the babes in the wood,’ you know.” “Let’s play I was dead!” The words sent a strange chill through the heart of the hurrying mother.

Her thoughts had been running on along the same line of complaining that she had expressed to the child: “If John had only let me get that embroidery for the skirt of Susie’s dress, I wouldn’t need to hem all these ruffles; but there is never any money to spare when I want anything. I’m sure I go without for myself willingly in order to have the children look nice; and if there is another woman that works and saves more than I do, I wish John had her—that’s all!”

So far her complaining thoughts had carried her when the sweet little voice broke in, “Play I was dead.” Dead! To think of it, even in play! And yet her neighbor’s little daughter was buried only last week! What if her treasure, her patient, sunny little Susie, should die! Would she think then that all she owed the child was to overwork for her sake? Or would she wish she had been less hurried, and made the little heart happy in a serene and joyous home? How many times had she pushed that loving little arm off her neck because she was hurried! How many times laid her own burdens of care, worry, and fretfulness upon that tender little spirit that should be care-free as a bird! Conscience began to struggle as Mrs. Bond sewed yet faster. Suppose Susie were, indeed, to die! What would baby do? No one could amuse him like sweet and patient Susie. And she was the sunlight of her father’s life. What would home be to him without her? Suddenly Mrs. Bond’s brow crimsoned as she had to own to herself that she had, unconsciously, determined that her husband should have a cloudy supper hour; for was it not hard for her that he should refuse even a little embroidery for her child’s dress? Now she thought: “Poor John! He is so proud of Susie! Perhaps he could not get the money, and felt bad about it.”

“Now I’m all dead,” came the voice from outside. Mrs. Bond rose from the machine and looked out. Under the apple tree, with eyes shut very tightly, and chubby hands (not over-clean) folded primly across her breast, lay Susie, while little Teddie was busily piling a heap of lilac leaves over her sunny curls as they lay widespread on the grass. A smile and a sigh met together on the mother’s lips. “I will go and stir up some of those griddle-cakes John is so fond of for supper,” she soliloquized; “then he’ll know I’m sorry I was cross about the dress.” Strange how hard husbands and wives find it to say little easy sentences, such as, “I was wrong,” “I am sorry,” “I love you,” “Forgive me”! Mrs. Bond hurried to the kitchen (which she always

left shining with cleanliness before she began her afternoon sewing, no matter how weary she was). She had scarcely time to prepare the appetizing meal which she had planned, and was hurrying, as usual, when she heard a loud scream, and Susie ran in carrying Teddie, from whose fingers the blood dropped on the white floor as he reached out his arms for “mover.” It was too provoking, just as she was going to have everything so pleasant for her husband. “O you naughty child!” she began; “had to let him get hurt, just as I was in”—The sentence died on her lips as she met Susie’s sorrowful gaze, noted the pale face, the quivering lip, and the trembling form of her precious little daughter. “Play she was dead,” whispered a voice in her fretful heart. “Never mind, darling; mother knows you did the best you could,” and she gave the astonished Susie a hurried kiss as she carried baby to the sink. “Now help mother, for father will be here right away. You can bring the roll of white pieces from the pantry drawer to wrap up these poor little fingers, and then wash up the blood from the floor before it dries.” Susie hurried to obey.

“Now, Teddie, mans don’t cry. You can play you are a wounded soldier, and sit in the high-chair by the window and watch for papa, while I get his supper.”

Susie was eager to help, and seemed so grateful to escape sharp words that Mrs. Bond experienced a queer, guilty feeling. Had she, then, been so unkind to the child she loved so tenderly that a little forbearance caused surprise and gratitude?

In spite of hurry, the supper was not ready when Mr. Bond came slowly up the walk. His brow was clouded, and his wife noted that his shoulders were stooping and his walk was listless. Plainly John was overworked, and he advanced as if uncertain of the state of the home atmosphere.

“Poor John!” she thought. “Play he was dead!” She must make home a more restful place for him. What would home be should he never come into it any more? So she smiled bravely at him, and waved the pancake turner gaily, in token that a dish he liked was in preparation.

His brow cleared instantly, and, turning to take and toss little Teddie, he was soon deep in the discussion of how the knife shut up on the chubby, hurt fingers. A whispered word to Susie, and there lay beside papa’s plate a spray of the pink bleeding-heart that had been transplanted from his own mother’s dooryard.

“Is it a birthday, or what?” he asked, lifting the flowers, as he took another golden brown griddle-cake. “I thought you would be too hurried and worried over that dress to get any supper.”

Mrs. Bond blushed a little. Was kindness, then, so strange in the home over which she presided that a little gift of love, that cost nothing, should occasion surprise? Yet what had she planned for the supper hour before Susie’s new play?—If not absolute unkindness, yet a resentment of his refusal of the embroidery for the dress.

“It was time I had the lesson,” she thought. “I will do as I would wish I had if he should die.”

After the supper work was all done, the sponge set for light rolls for breakfast, and the children, rosy from the bath, in bed, she hoped to finish Susie’s dress; for the next day was Sunday. But Teddie was restless, kept wanting a drink, and would let no one tend him but his “mover.” With an impatient gesture she left her work, and bent over the crib. “Go to sleep this minute, you naughty baby!” she said. But the red lip was “put up” pitifully, and the little pleading hand that touched her cheek was too hot. “Play he was dead,” said the voice in her heart. “Would you value a dress above your loving baby, who needs your care, and can never be a baby but once?” She took the baby into her arms, and gently sang, while she softly laved the hot hands and face with warm water. By and by the white lids drooped over the blue eyes, and baby slept. But it was long before the mother sought her pillow.

Sitting there in the silence, slowly rocking her child, her thoughts took unaccustomed courses. What was she doing with her life, and the lives of those dearest to her? Had she set up a false standard of values? “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” Was the demon of hurry spoiling her home? Was she so overworked that she was habitually fretful? Suppose she should die! Would her children remember only a fretful voice and a face clouded with worry? Would they be happier in the care of some one more serene and gentle? Would they remember, not the work mother did for them, but the unjust scolding and nervous worry? What did it matter how they were clothed as babies? They would not remember nor care. But if she could give them a childhood bright enough to light all after-life, happy, serene, with no tempests of fright and anger, with the memory of mother as the one who never failed them, but was the constant source of love, sympathy, forgiveness, and comfort, no matter what they had done—ah! that was what she would strive for. John should see. She would be different.

And that is why Susie wore on Easter Sunday her old blue gingham dress (and looked as sweet as a pink rose in it, too), while the other girls had new white dresses.

And Susie never knew how her new play, invented for Teddie that afternoon, brought sunshine into that home, so that her mother no longer was a slave to worry, and her father took fresh courage, and the little ones grew, like roses, in a tranquil atmosphere. Verily, “a little child shall lead them.”—Mrs. McVean Adams, in S. S. Times.