XI THE CHILD ON THE BATTLE-FIELD

WHEN the Master asked His disciples to take no thought for the morrow, He asked what to the Jew was the most difficult attitude of mind,—at least to the Jewish mind as I knew it. In my childhood, the Jewish characteristic was to be burdened by care to the degree that full, unqualified pleasure seemed impossible. Even to-day, when I meet men who come from Jewish homes in the Old World, they invariably tell me that news from home is never unreservedly good, and letters are dreaded, because they always tell of persecutions that were, are, or will be; of business which is bad, health which is worse and death which comes, leaving so little hope behind. The all-absorbing cares of these Jewish homes are the dowry and marriage of the daughters and the fear of military service for the sons. Mothers begin to lay aside linen and feather pillows for the marriage portion before a girl is out of her swaddling clothes, and money is early put into the bank for the same purpose; so that, unless the family is in more than comfortable circumstances, this compels strictest economy and in many cases causes acute suffering.

Among very poor people, it is no rare thing to see mothers begging from door to door for aid in securing a dowry; and to marry off a daughter well, is great good fortune, while to marry her under any circumstances seems to be a compelling duty.

Worry about the sons has in it an admixture of terror. The Jew has no passion for war and every reason to dread it. Persecution has made him timid and he finds that non-resistance is a necessary virtue. Physical courage is not one of his great assets. I have always felt the lack of it and have already called attention to my dread of firearms.

Perhaps one of the strongest factors in making Jewish parents fear the proscription of their sons was the fact that in many cases military service meant a complete breaking away from Jewish customs. The lads themselves had no pleasure in store for them in their association with Gentile comrades and officers who were never too considerate of their feelings. No small wonder then, that everything which could be done legitimately or illegitimately was done to free a son from military service. The rich and unscrupulous bribed the examining military physician and the poor sometimes tried a prolonged debauch to make the desired impression of physical unfitness.

There were two great virtues which my mother constantly preached and practiced; charity and contentment. The first kept her from speaking ill of her neighbours and the second saved her from unnecessary worry. Yet I knew that after my brother’s name was posted on the courthouse doors among the list of those to present themselves for physical examination, she lay awake many a night and I often saw traces of tears on her face. “As God wills,” was her characteristic expression, and it seemed to be the will of God that her son should be found fit to serve the Hungarian king in the seventy-third infantry regiment. It was a dreary day in our house, as if some one had died. We walked about on tiptoe and never raised our voices. Only the brother most concerned seemed cheerful or at least pretended to be. He was sworn in at the dirty jail, where the peasant lads were locked up, for fear they might get drunk before they came to that solemn ceremony. Then he returned home, awaiting the command to join his regiment.

When the summons finally came, it was a call to arms—to war. Austria had been apportioned the unruly Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in her self-confident fashion, hoped to pacify its half-savage inhabitants by invading their territory with a brass band, regiments of soldiers and a superabundance of useless officers. The untamed Slavs, who spurned Moslem rule and had fought for freedom in their mountains, were not eager to exchange masters, so from behind the rocks they fired their crude blunderbusses and from safe ambush fell upon the trim Hapsburg soldiers. Regiment after regiment was sent, thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers were slain, the national debt leaped into hundreds of millions and the poor women all over that beautiful and unhappy country began making bandages and picking lint for the wounded. The regiment to which my brother belonged was ordered to the front, but before it left he obtained a two days’ furlough to visit his mother. It was the Jewish New Year’s day; one of the most solemn of all holy days. When early in the evening he came, I remember with what awe I handled his uniform, the dread I felt of his bayonet, fearing to touch it, and the general atmosphere of gloom which pervaded the house. Mother cried all day, we children wept with her and my brother walked up and down in his bright uniform, manfully trying to keep back his own tears. In the evening he had to leave us and it was as sad a leave-taking as I ever have witnessed.

A few days later, the postmaster himself came to our house with a message, which contained the sad news that my brother had been fatally wounded in the first engagement in which his regiment took part. That night my mother started for the far-away city. I begged to go with her. When she refused to let me, I threw myself in front of the horses, and when I was lifted from the ground I determined not to allow mother to face the misfortune alone. Unseen by any one, I ran through an orchard, across the creek to the highway, and when the carriage came, I jumped onto the protruding rear springs and made myself as comfortable as possible. Early in the morning, when the driver was changing horses, I was discovered, chilled to the bone and hungry; but happy because I was too far away from home to be sent back and could be with my mother in the great sorrow which awaited her.

She dragged herself from hospital to hospital, until our clothes were saturated by the odour of ether, our ears ringing from the groans of dying men, and our hearts heavy to the breaking point. Upon a bit of level soil, scarce in that stony country, soldiers were digging trenches, into which carts full of human bodies were literally dumped, and at each trench mother’s eyes searched for her first-born son. As they threw the last cartful of these torn and soiled temples of the spirit into a trench, her heroic strength gave way, for she saw my brother’s black hair matted from blood, and his handsome young face distorted by the pain he had suffered. It was hard to recognize him but she knew it was her son, because he wore the ring she herself had taken from the finger of her dead husband, and put there.

The experience of that day aged my mother and aged me, but it put a new sort of courage into me. I felt enraged by what I saw. I knew that a great wrong was being practiced against the children of men, a wrong which must be righted;—above all, I had seen Slav, Magyar, Jew and Gentile, one in death, so much alike that a Jewish mother scarcely knew her own child; my wise mother talked it all over with me. “Yes, my boy, we are made of the same clay and I believe we have the same spirit in us, no matter what our race or faith.” “Then, mother,” I said, “if we are all alike, why do we hate each other and kill each other?” But she was not wise enough to answer that question.