Mary was resting in the chair beneath the southern windows of the sun-parlor of the Doctor's bungalow. He had built his home of logs cut from the mountainside. Its rooms were supplied with every modern convenience and comfort. Clear spring water from the cliff above poured into the cypress tank constructed beneath the roof. An overflow pipe sent a sparkling, bubbling and laughing through the lawn, refreshing the wild flowers planted along its edges.
The view from the window looking south was one of ravishing beauty and endless charm. Perched on a rising spur of the Black Mountain the house commanded a view of the long valley of the Swannanoa opening at the lower end into the wide, sunlit sweep of the lower hills around Asheville. Upward the balsam-crowned peaks towered among the clouds and stars.
No two hours of the day were just alike. Sometimes the sun was raining showers of diamonds on the trembling tree-tops of the valleys while the blackest storm clouds hung in ominous menace around Mount Mitchell and the Cat-tail. Sometimes it was raining in the valley—the rain cloud a level sheet of gray cloth stretching from the foot of the lawn across to the crags beyond, while the sun wrapped the little bungalow in a warm, white mantle.
Mary had never tired of this enchanted world during the days of her convalescence. The Doctor, with firm will, had lifted every care from her mind. She had gratefully submitted to his orders, and asked no questions.
She began to wonder vaguely about his life and people and why he had left the world in which a man of his culture and power must have moved, to bury himself in these mountain wilds. She wondered if he had married, separated from his wife and chosen the life of a recluse. He volunteered no information about himself.
When not attending his patients he spent his hours in the greenhouse among his flowers or in the long library extension of the bungalow. More than five thousand volumes filled the solid shelves. A massive oak table, ten feet in length and four feet wide, stood in the center of the room, always generously piled with books, magazines and papers. At the end of this table he kept the row of books which bore immediately on the theme he was studying.
Beside the window opening on the view of the valley stood his old-fashioned desk—six feet long, its top a labyrinth of pigeon-holes and tiny drawers.
He pursued his studies with boyish enthusiasm and chattered of them to Mary by the hour—with never a word passing his lips about himself.
Aunt Abbie, the cook, brought her a cup of tea, and Mary volunteered a question.
“Do you know the Doctor's people, Auntie?” she asked hesitatingly.
“Lord, child, he's a mystery to everybody! All we know is that he's the best man that ever walked the earth. He won't talk and the mountain folks are too polite to nose into his business. He saved my boy's life one summer, and when he was strong and well and went back to Asheville to his work, I had nothin' to do but to hold my hands, and I come here to cook for him. He tries to pay me wages but I laugh at him. I told him if he could save my boy's life for nothin' I reckon I could cook him a few good meals without pay——”
Her eyes filled with tears. She brushed them off, laughed and added:
“He lets me alone now and don't pester me no more about money.”
Her tea and toast finished, Mary placed the tray on the table, rose with a sudden look of pain, and made her way slowly to the library.
A warm fire of hardwood logs sparkled in the big stone fireplace. The Doctor was out on a visit to a patient. He had given her the freedom of the place and had especially insisted that she use his books and make his library her resting place whenever her mind was fagged. She had spent many quiet hours in its inspiring atmosphere.
She seated herself at his desk and studied the calendar which hung above it. A sudden terror overwhelmed her; she buried her face in her arms and burst into tears.
She was still lying across the desk, sobbing, when the Doctor walked into the room.
He touched her hair reproachfully with his firm hand.
“Why, what's this? My little soldier has disobeyed orders?”
“I don't want to live now,” she sobbed.
“And why not?”
“I—I—am going to be a mother,” she whispered.
“So?”
“The mother of a criminal! Oh, Doctor, it's horrible! Why did you let me live? The hell I passed through that night was enough—God knows! This will be unendurable. I've made up my mind—I'll die first——”
“Rubbish, child! Rubbish!” he answered with a laugh. “Where did you get all this misinformation?”
“You know what my husband was. How can you ask?”
“Because I happen to know also his wife—the mother-to-be of this supposed criminal who has just set sail for the shores of our planet—and I know that she is one of the purest and sweetest souls who ever lost her way in the jungles of the world. If you were the criminal, dear heart, the case might be hopeless. But you're not. You are only the innocent victim of your own folly. That doesn't count in the game of Nature——”
“What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.
“Simply this: The part which the male plays in the reproduction of the race is small in comparison with the role of the female. He is merely a supernumerary who steps on the stage for a moment and speaks one word announcing the arrival of the queen. The queen is the mother. She plays the star role in the drama of Heredity. She is never off the stage for a single moment. We inherit the most obvious physical traits from our male ancestors but even these may be modified by the will of the mother.”
“Modified by the will of the mother?” she repeated blankly.
“Certainly. There are yet long days and weeks and months before your babe will be born—at least seven months. There's not a sight or sound of earth or heaven that can reach or influence this coming human being save through your eyes and ears and touch and soul. Almighty God can speak His message only through you. You are his ambassador on earth in this solemn hour. What your husband was, is of little importance. There is not a moment, waking or sleeping, day or night, that does not bring to you its divine opportunity. This human life is yours—absolutely to mold and fashion in body and mind as you will.”
“You're just saying this to keep me from suicide,” Mary interrupted.
“I am telling you the simplest truth of physical life. You can even change the contour of your baby's head if you like. You think in your silly fears that the bull neck and jaw of the father will reappear in the child. It might be so unless you see fit to change it. All any father can do is to transmit general physical traits unless modified by the will of the mother.”
“You mean that I can choose even the personal appearance of my child?” she asked in blank amazement.
“Exactly that. Choose the type of man you wish your babe to be and it shall be so. Who in all the world would you prefer that he resemble?”
“You,” she answered promptly.
He smiled gently.
“That pays me for all my trouble, child! No doctor ever got a bigger fee than that. Banks may fail, but I'll never lose it. Your choice simplifies that matter very much. You won't need a picture in your room——”
“A picture could determine the features of an unborn babe?” she asked incredulously.
“Beyond a doubt, and it will determine character sometimes. I knew a mother in the mountains of Vermont who hung the picture of a ship under full sail in her living-room. She bore seven sons. Not one of them ever saw the ocean until he was grown and yet all of them became sailors. This was not an accident. In her age and loneliness she blamed God for taking her children from her. Yet she had made sailors of them all by the selection of a single piece of furniture in her room. Nature has a way of starting her children on their journey through this world very nearly equal—each a bundle of possibilities in the hands of a mother. A father may transmit physical disease, if his body is unsound. Such marriages should be prohibited by law. But nine-tenths of the spiritual traits out of which character is formed are the work of the mother. A criminal mother will bring into the world only criminals. A criminal male may be the father of a saint. The responsibility of shaping the destiny of the race rests with the mother——”
The Doctor sprang to his feet and paced the floor, his arms gripped behind his back in deep thought. He paused before the enraptured listener and hesitated to speak the thought in his mind.
He lifted his hand suddenly, his decision apparently made.
“It is of the utmost importance to the race that our mothers shall be pure. Better certainly if both father and mother are so. It is indispensable that the mother shall be! On this elemental fact rests the dual standard of sex morals. On this fact rests the hope of a glorified humanity through the development of an intelligent motherhood. Stay here with me until your child is born and I'll prove the truth of every word I've spoken——”
“Oh, if I only could!”
“Why not?”
“I couldn't impose such a burden on you!” she faltered.
“You would confer on me the highest honor, if you will allow me to direct you in this experiment.”
There was no mistaking his honesty and earnestness. There was no refusing the appeal.
“You really wish me to stay?” she asked.
“I beg of you to stay! You will bring to me a new inspiration—new faith—new courage to fight. Will you?”
She extended her hand.
“Yes.”
“And you will agree to follow my instructions?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. We begin from this moment. I give you my first orders. Forget that James Anthony ever lived. Forget the tragedy of Christmas Eve. You are going to be a mother. All other events in life pale before this fact. God has conferred on you the highest honor He can give to mortal. Keep your soul serene, your body strong. You are to worry about nothing——”
“I must pay you for this extra expense I impose, Doctor. I have a thousand dollars in bank in New York,” she interrupted.
“Certainly, if you will be happier. My home is now your sanitarium. You are my patient. Your board will cost me about eight dollars a week. All right. You can pay that if you wish.
“Take no thought now except on the business of being a mother. I will make myself your father, your brother, your guardian, your physician, your friend and companion. I will give you at once a course of reading. You are to think only beautiful thoughts, see beautiful things, dream beautiful dreams, hear beautiful music. I'm going to make you climb these mountain peaks with me for the next three months and live among the clouds. I'm going to refit your room with new furniture and pictures and place in it a phonograph with the best music. When you are strong enough you can work for me three hours a day as my secretary. You use the typewriter?”
“I'm an expert——”
“Good! I'm writing a book which I'm going to call `The Rulers of the World.' It is a study of Motherhood. I am one who believes that the redemption of humanity awaits the realization by woman of her divine call. When woman knows that she is really a co-creator with God in the reproduction of the race, a new era will dawn for mankind. You promise me faithfully to obey my instructions?”
“Faithfully.”
“You're a wonderful subject on which to make an experiment. You are young—in the first dawn of the glory of womanhood. Your body is beautiful, your mind singularly pure and sweet. You must give me at once the full power of your will in its concentration on Truth and Beauty. The success or failure of this experiment will depend almost entirely on your mentality and the use you make of it during these months in which your babe is being formed. Whatever the shape of the body there is one eternal certainty—only YOUR mind can reach the soul of this child. If the father were the veriest fiend who ever existed and should concentrate his mind to the task, not one thought from his darkened soul could reach your babe! YOUR mind will be the ever-brooding, enfolding spirit forming and fashioning character.”
He paused and his deep brown eyes flashed with enthusiasm.
“Think of it! You are now creating an immortal being whose word may bend a million wills to his. And you are doing this mighty work solely by your mind. The physical processes are simple and automatic.
“The first lesson you must learn and hold with deathless grip is that thoughts are things. A thought can kill the body. A thought can heal the body. If I am successful as a physician it is because I use this power with my patients. With some I use drugs, with others none. With all I use every ounce of mental power which God has given me. You will remember this?”
“Yes.”
He walked to the shelves and drew down a volume of poetry.
“Read these poems until you are tired today—then sleep. I'll give you a good novel tomorrow and when you've read it, a volume of philosophy. When we climb the peaks, I'll give you a study of these rocks that will tell you the story of their birth, their life, and their coming death. We'll learn something of the birds and flowers next spring. We'll dream great dreams and think great thoughts—you and I—in these wonderful days and weeks and months which God shall give us together.”
She looked up at him through her tears:
“Oh, Doctor, you have not only saved a miserable life: you have saved my soul!”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg