--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Rose, Will collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 18 number: 12 published: 1915-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Rose, Will, "The Sigh of the Weary," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 12 (October 1915): 1050–1052.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18012unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera18012unse start_page: 1050 end_page: 1052 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18012unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Sigh of the Weary "The Sigh of the Weary" BY WILL ROSE Salt Lake City, Utah, May 26, 1915. Dear Father and Mother : — You will find your mortgage to the trust company, also the abstract of the farm, enclosed with this letter. I am not sending them back for correction this time, but because I have decided not to borrow the money, after all. Ever since you gave up your opposition to my project and con- sented to mortgage the old place, I have been feeling more and more ashamed of my victory. But I would not admit this to my- self until last night. As you already know, I was very bitter over what I called your old- fogy fear of progress. I thought you ought to jump at the chance I offered, to make us all rich. I hope you will both forgive the things I wrote in that frame of mind. For now I see the project, or rather your part in it, in an entirely new light. I still believe we could make a little fortune out of peaches if we had the money to handle the market. The more I study the mat- ter the stronger is my faith in my original plan. The completion of the new State highway, allowing the use of motor-trucks, puts the early peach market at our mercy ; for you know as well as I do that our peaches ripen at least two weeks earlier than any others in the Rocky Mountains. So I still say we have a sure thing if we only had the money to equip ourselves properly. But something has made it impossible for me to go on with this deal, and I want to tell you what that something is. When the mail brought the mortgage last night I was so eager and impatient to get things going that I couldn't wait until morning to see Manager Kean of the trust company. So I called him up and he invited me out to his home. Cousin Hal took me out in his car. Mr. Kean lives in one of the best residence dis- tricts of the city, but his home was not at all what I had expected in one of his wealth. Where I had looked for magnificence, there was only comfort and simplicity. I felt every bit as much at home there as I would out on the farm. Mr. Kean showed me as much courtesy and friendly interest there in his home as he had dis- played in his office. It was a pleasant evening after the heat of that summer day, especially up there so far away from the swelter of the business section of town. The family were sitting out in a sort of little pergola by the side of the house. After I had gone over the ab- "THE SIGH OF THE WEARY" 1051 stract with him and settled the terms of the loan, my host snapped off the lights and we sat and talked the evening away in the shadow of the climbing roses. Mr. Kean asked so much about your early struggles in clear- ing and fencing the farm and getting the water on it that I won- dered at first if he had further doubts of its loan value. But after awhile he began to talk of his own father, telling in a slow, mus- ing way of their early struggles in Kimball valley. I had not thought of him as the son of a pioneer. Somehow, in the peace of that pleasant retreat his rambling recollections, told with such surprising bursts of feeling, gave those old days a new and beautiful dignity. I saw you and what you have done for the world as I had never seen you before. Across the way a group of young people were about a piano sing- ing, mostlv the old songs like "Annie Laurie," "Belle Mahone," "Tenting Tonight," and "Home, Sweet Home." These seemed to fit in so well with my host's conversation that it is hard to re- member which was song and which story. I suppose I must have become drowsy under the spell of the voices, when suddenly I woke to the fact that Kean had ceased talking to listen to the singers. "Let us pause in life's pleasures * * *" I could swear there were tears in the banker's eyes. And when those clear, young voices took up the chorus : " 'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary * * *" I could see you, father, with your bent back and tired shuffle, and vou, mother, with your beautiful, careworn face and drooping shoulders ; and when the voices pleaded : "Many days you have lingered around our cabin door," all the long, dreary, heartbreaking years of your lives rose up to accuse me. "Hard times, hard times, come again no more," the singers beseeched ; and I realized in that moment how your harrowed souls must echo that appeal. There came to me the recollection of the big banquet with which the settlers celebrated the finishing of our monster dam. I was too small then to do more than listen and eat. But I haven't forgotten that when you all arose from your feasting and laughter and started to sing "Hard Times," vou broke down like homesick children and couldn't go on for tears. I couldn't understand the sobbing of the women then, but I do now. You felt it too deeply. Realization of the long, bitter fight choked the words in your throats. I see now that this driv- ing fear of famine, this desperate battle with want have darkened too many years of your lives to be ever entirely dispelled. I un- derstand now why you clung to the old home so frantically. I see now why you cherish all those little, old-time economies that have always seemed so needless in these days of plenty. As th« singers ceased I saw through tears of shame and humility what a 1052 IMPROVEMENT KRA sacrifice it was for your stiffened fingers to sign that cruel mort- gage. Forgive me, father, forgive me, mother, for what I came so nearly doing. Why, now that I see it all, I could no more throw the blight of that mortgage over your lives than I could shoot you down in your chairs. But I must tell you the rest. For a long while we sat there in silence. The singers had scattered to their homes. The last cars for the night were droning their way to the city's edge. Still we sat and thought, each his own thoughts. Finally Cousin Hal's machine on the street roused me. "Air. Kean," I said, "I've changed my mind about that loan. I can't take it. It wouldn't be fair to the old folks." "My boy," he answered, "I'm glad to hear you say it. I was afraid you were risking all they had, and I wanted to object : bvi I realized that I could only offend you to no purpose. Thank God, you had the sense to understand. I am a banker now, and make much of my money out of loans, but I wish all the boys in the state could learn this same lesson of respect for their fathers' hard- earned means. Don't worry about your project. If the education your father has worked so hard to give you is worth that work, you will win out without financial crutches. Come and talk with me again. It has been a wonderful evening for both of us ; and whatever you do," he ended, gripping my hand warmly, "be kind to those splendid parents of yours." I hope I can, father and mother ; that is now my sincerest wish. May God bless you both and help me to be more worthy of your self-effacing love. Home soon. Your boy, Joe. Sympathy Though patriots all, with full hearts, warm and true, Hearts throbbing with love for the Red, White and Blue — Speak softly today, and ring the bells low, And let the procession march quiet and slow ; Hushed is the trumpet's blare, silent the cheers. As with heart sobs of nations we mingle our tears. Muffled the drum-beat, let quiet prevail While in birth-pangs of agony nations travail, In birth-pangs of sorrow that yet shall bring forth New Freedom to bless and enlighten the earth. Alice Morrill. WHITE ROCKS, UTAH