An Every-Day Heroine by William Aikman

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 37.

An Every-Day Heroine.

By William Aikman

"And so they fell by thousands—those unnamed demigods!" exclaimed Kossuth in one of his impassioned orations made in this country over thirty years ago. He was speaking of the unselfish patriotism of his countrymen as they laid down their lives in battle. It was the enthusiastic estimate of a man who saw the extremity of devotion in men who never had a thought that they would be heralded or even known, but who, with sublime self-sacrifice, did their duty only.

There are unnamed heroes everywhere. They need not be looked for on battle-fields; they can easily be found in obscure places, where few eyes see them, and no one thinks of celebrating or heralding them. More often they are heroines, gentle women who meet the battle-shock of life and bear it bravely and with smiles.

In a country place, removed from the noise of the city, we have been observing one of these unnamed heroines. The old house in which she has her home has stood for more than eighty years where it is. Once a large family filled it. It was the home of plenty, and its mistress was a Lady Bountiful, and its master one whom men praised and children clung to. But times have changed and have dispeopled it, and now many of its rooms are vacant. Father and brothers have gone, the one to the grave, the others to make homes elsewhere on earth. Only the daughter is left with the widowed mother. There is still the place, not now prosperous as in the olden time—it is gone much to decay—to be cared for; the garden, the cow, the home; and some one must give the care.

It would be easy for this girl to despond and to have started back from the responsibility and the work; to have said, "I cannot do it; it is not a woman's task." But so she has not done. She has taken up the burden, and she bears it cheerily from day to day. She evidently does not think it a burden. Her face is bright, and I hear her quiet singing as she goes on her way round the house. She directs everything, provides for everything, but with a sunshine of good nature. I hear no fretful word when annoyances press upon her—and that is almost every day; I hear no whisper of complaint, nor the semblance of an expression of weariness or dissatisfaction. She does not seem to think that she is doing anything out of the usual line of things. She is not old; she is young enough to enjoy the pleasant things of life, and she does enjoy them. She does not seem to feel cut off by the multiplicity of her cares, from company or amusements. Somehow she contrives to mingle them in with the routine of her life, and to get more out of them than others without a tithe of her occupations.

Now, there is nothing extraordinary in all this. There are all over the land thousands of just such girls. They are found in every city and hamlet, and this girl is in no way superior to any one of them. They have widowed mothers to care for, little brothers and sisters to look after, a scanty income to make up by skillful contrivances; they have a hundred worries and heavy responsibilities; but they go singing on their way, bravely and sweetly doing all that the hours are demanding, all that the days are bringing. No murmur escapes their lips, and no murmur seems to be in their hearts. They are simply true-hearted women.

Yet they are heroines, more of heroines, when one comes to measure it all, than if on some battle-field they helped the wounded, or by some river risked life to save a drowning child. Battle-fields are not found every day nor even every year. These great occasions come only once in a great while, and to the most of people never. They can never display courage or unselfish devotion if these are only

fields for them. But the ordinary days, as they come and go, make opportunities for almost every one to display these high qualities. Life is made up of small moments and small things, but great qualities can be shown in them. The steady pressure of care, the everlasting round of humdrum duties, the small worries and frets of life, make them. In these few the most of us fail. We do not see just where the great opportunities open. We do not see them great, or our opportunities at all.

But what is more noble than to meet them courageously and cheerfully, to take up their burden with a song and a smile? The cheery silence or the quiet song of this girl, the patience and the steady endeavor that make up the history of every day, seem in this light heroic.

Perhaps these lines may fall under the eye of some one more than half weary with the cares that do not cease to come with every day, with work and duty whose tread is a perpetual round, till you are tempted to grow sad and to feel that life has but small meaning in it. Do not yield to the thought. There is heroism in your daily bearing and doing; there is a nobility in your life when, with smiles and rippling songs, you do the work that lies just in front of you. There are unseen eyes that watch, angelic presences that help, and—more than all—One whose tenderness wearies not, and who will by and by say, "Well done!" It was said to one who had been faithful in a very little.—Rev. William Aikman, D. D.