Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  “Does she keep on just the same?” asked little Mrs. Ree of Mrs. Porne in an awed whisper.

  “Just the same if not better. I don’t even order the meals now, unless I want something especial. She keeps a calendar of what we’ve had to eat, and what belongs to the time of year, prices and things. When I used to ask her to suggest (one does, you know: it is so hard to think up a variety!), she’d always be ready with an idea, or remind me that we had had so and so two days before, till I asked her if she’d like to order, and she said she’d be willing to try, and now I just sit down to the table without knowing what’s going to be there.”

  “But I should think that would interfere with your sense of freedom,” said Mrs. Ellen A Dankshire, “A woman should be mistress of her own household.”

  “Why I am! I order whenever I specially want anything. But she really does it more — more scientifically. She has made a study of it. And the bills are very much lower.”

  “Well, I think you are the luckiest woman alive!” sighed Mrs. Ree. “I wish I had her!”

  Many a woman wished she had her, and some, calling when they knew Mrs. Porne was out, or descending into their own kitchens of an evening when the strange Miss Bell was visiting “the help,” made flattering propositions to her to come to them. She was perfectly polite and agreeable in manner, but refused all blandishments.

  “What are you getting at your present place — if I may ask?” loftily inquired the great Mrs. Thaddler, ponderous and beaded.

  “There is surely no objection to your asking, madam,” she replied politely. “Mrs. Porne will not mind telling you, I am sure.”

  “Hm!” said the patronizing visitor, regarding her through her lorgnette. “Very good. Whatever it is I’ll double it. When can you come?”

  “My engagement with Mrs. Porne is for six months,” Diantha answered, “and I do not wish to close with anyone else until that time is up. Thank you for your offer just the same.”

  “Peculiarly offensive young person!” said Mrs. Thaddler to her husband. “Looks to me like one of these literary imposters. Mrs. Porne will probably appear in the magazines before long.”

  Mr. Thaddler instantly conceived a liking for the young person, “sight unseen.”

  Diantha acquired quite a list of offers; places open to her as soon as she was free; at prices from her present seven dollars up to the proposed doubling.

  “Fourteen dollars a week and found! — that’s not so bad,” she meditated. “That would mean over $650 clear in a year! It’s a wonder to me girls don’t try it long enough to get a start at something else. With even two or three hundred ahead — and an outfit — it would be easier to make good in a store or any other way. Well — I have other fish to fry!”

  So she pursued her way; and, with Mrs. Porne’s permission — held a sort of girl’s club in her spotless kitchen one evening a week during the last three months of her engagement. It was a “Study and Amusement Club.” She gave them short and interesting lessons in arithmetic, in simple dressmaking, in easy and thorough methods of housework. She gave them lists of books, referred them to articles in magazines, insidiously taught them to use the Public Library.

  They played pleasant games in the second hour, and grew well acquainted. To the eye or ear of any casual visitor it was the simplest and most natural affair, calculated to “elevate labor” and to make home happy.

  Diantha studied and observed. They brought her their poor confidences, painfully similar. Always poverty — or they would not be there. Always ignorance, or they would not stay there. Then either incompetence in the work, or inability to hold their little earnings — or both; and further the Tale of the Other Side — the exactions and restrictions of the untrained mistresses they served; cases of withheld wages; cases of endless requirements; cases of most arbitrary interference with their receiving friends and “followers,” or going out; and cases, common enough to be horrible, of insult they could only escape by leaving.

  “It’s no wages, of course — and no recommendation, when you leave like that — but what else can a girl do, if she’s honest?”

  So Diantha learned, made friends and laid broad foundations.

  The excellence of her cocking was known to many, thanks to the weekly “entertainments.” No one refused. No one regretted acceptance. Never had Mrs. Porne enjoyed such a sense of social importance.

  All the people she ever knew called on her afresh, and people she never knew called on her even more freshly. Not that she was directly responsible for it. She had not triumphed cruelly over her less happy friends; nor had she cried aloud on the street corners concerning her good fortune. It was not her fault, nor, in truth anyone’s. But in a community where the “servant question” is even more vexed than in the country at large, where the local product is quite unequal to the demand, and where distance makes importation an expensive matter, the fact of one woman’s having, as it appeared, settled this vexed question, was enough to give her prominence.

  Mrs. Ellen A. Dankshire, President of the Orchardina Home and Culture Club, took up the matter seriously.

  “Now Mrs. Porne,” said she, settling herself vigorously into a comfortable chair, “I just want to talk the matter over with you, with a view to the club. We do not know how long this will last—”

  “Don’t speak of it!” said Mrs. Porne.

  “ — and it behooves us to study the facts while we have them.”

  “So much is involved!” said little Mrs. Ree, the Corresponding Secretary, lifting her pale earnest face with the perplexed fine lines in it. “We are all so truly convinced of the sacredness of the home duties!”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” asked their hostess.

  “We must have that remarkable young woman address our club!” Mrs. Dankshire announced. “It is one case in a thousand, and must be studied!”

  “So noble of her!” said Mrs. Ree. “You say she was really a school-teacher? Mrs. Thaddler has put it about that she is one of these dreadful writing persons — in disguise!”

  “O no,” said Mrs. Porne. “She is perfectly straightforward about it, and had the best of recommendations. She was a teacher, but it didn’t agree with her health, I believe.”

  “Perhaps there is a story to it!” Mrs. Ree advanced; but Mrs. Dankshire disagreed with her flatly.

  “The young woman has a theory, I believe, and she is working it out. I respect her for it. Now what we want to ask you, Mrs. Porne, is this: do you think it would make any trouble for you — in the household relations, you know — if we ask her to read a paper to the Club? Of course we do not wish to interfere, but it is a remarkable opportunity — very. You know the fine work Miss Lucy Salmon has done on this subject; and Miss Frances Kellor. You know how little data we have, and how great, how serious, a question it is daily becoming! Now here is a young woman of brains and culture who has apparently grappled with the question; her example and influence must not be lost! We must hear from her. The public must know of this.”

  “Such an ennobling example!” murmured Mrs. Ree. “It might lead numbers of other school-teachers to see the higher side of the home duties!”

  “Furthermore,” pursued Mrs. Dankshire, “this has occured to me. Would it not be well to have our ladies bring with them to the meeting the more intelligent of their servants; that they might hear and see the — the dignity of household labor — so ably set forth?

  “Isn’t it — wouldn’t that be a — an almost dangerous experiment?” urged Mrs. Ree; her high narrow forehead fairly creped with little wrinkles: “She might — say something, you know, that they might — take advantage of!”

  “Nonsense, my dear!” replied Mrs. Dankshire. She was very fond of Mrs. Ree, but had small respect for her judgment. “What could she say? Look at what she does! And how beautifully — how perfectly — she does it! I would wager now — may I try an experiment Mrs. Porne?” and she stood up, taking out her handkerchief.

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Porne, �
��with pleasure! You won’t find any!”

  Mrs. Dankshire climbed heavily upon a carefully selected chair and passed her large clean plain-hemmed handkerchief across the top of a picture.

  “I knew it!” she proclaimed proudly from her eminence, and showed the cloth still white. “That,” she continued in ponderous descent, “that is Knowledge, Ability and Conscience!”

  “I don’t see how she gets the time!” breathed Mrs. Ree, shaking her head in awed amazement, and reflecting that she would not dare trust Mrs. Dankshire’s handkerchief on her picture tops.

  “We must have her address the Club,” the president repeated. “It will do worlds of good. Let me see — a paper on — we might say ‘On the True Nature of Domestic Industry.’ How does that strike you, Mrs. Ree?”

  “Admirable!” said Mrs. Ree. “So strong! so succinct.”

  “That certainly covers the subject,” said Mrs. Porne. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “We will. We have come for that purpose. But we felt it right to ask you about it first,” said Mrs. Dankshire.

  “Why I have no control over Miss Bell’s movements, outside of working hours,” answered Mrs. Porne. “And I don’t see that it would make any difference to our relations. She is a very self-poised young woman, but extremely easy to get along with. And I’m sure she could write a splendid paper. You’d better ask her, I think.”

  “Would you call her in?” asked Mrs. Dankshire, “or shall we go out to the kitchen?”

  “Come right out; I’d like you to see how beautifully she keeps everything.”

  The kitchen was as clean as the parlor; and as prettily arranged. Miss Bell was making her preparation for lunch, and stopped to receive the visitors with a serenely civil air — as of a country store-keeper.

  “I am very glad to meet you, Miss Bell, very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Dankshire, shaking hands with her warmly. “We have at heard so much of your beautiful work here, and we admire your attitude! Now would you be willing to give a paper — or a talk — to our club, the Home and Culture Club, some Wednesday, on The True Nature of Domestic Industry?”

  Mrs. Ree took Miss Bell’s hand with something of the air of a Boston maiden accosting a saint from Hindoostan. “If you only would!” she said. “I am sure it would shed light on this great subject!”

  Miss Bell smiled at them both and looked at Mrs. Porne inquiringly.

  “I should be delighted to have you do it,” said her employer. “I know it would be very useful.”

  “Is there any date set?” asked Miss Bell.

  “Any Wednesday after February,” said Mrs. Dankshire.

  “Well — I will come on the first Wednesday in April. If anything should happen to prevent I will let you know in good season, and if you should wish to postpone or alter the program — should think better of the idea — just send me word. I shall not mind in the least.”

  They went away quite jubilant, Miss Bell’s acceptance was announced officially at the next club-meeting, and the Home and Culture Club felt that it was fulfilling its mission.

  CHAPTER VII. HERESY AND SCHISM.

  You may talk about religion with a free and open mind,

  For ten dollars you may criticize a judge;

  You may discuss in politics the newest thing you find,

  And open scientific truth to all the deaf and blind,

  But there’s one place where the brain must never budge!

  CHORUS.

  Oh, the Home is Utterly Perfect!

  And all its works within!

  To say a word about it —

  To criticize or doubt it —

  To seek to mend or move it —

  To venture to improve it —

  Is The Unpardonable Sin!

  — “Old Song.”

  Mr. Porne took an afternoon off and came with his wife to hear their former housemaid lecture. As many other men as were able did the same. All the members not bedridden were present, and nearly all the guests they had invited.

  So many were the acceptances that a downtown hall had been taken; the floor was more than filled, and in the gallery sat a block of servant girls, more gorgeous in array than the ladies below whispering excitedly among themselves. The platform recalled a “tournament of roses,” and, sternly important among all that fragrant loveliness, sat Mrs. Dankshire in “the chair” flanked by Miss Torbus, the Recording Secretary, Miss Massing, the Treasurer, and Mrs. Ree, tremulous with importance in her official position. All these ladies wore an air of high emprise, even more intense than that with which they usually essayed their public duties. They were richly dressed, except Miss Torbus, who came as near it as she could.

  At the side, and somewhat in the rear of the President, on a chair quite different from “the chair,” discreetly gowned and of a bafflingly serene demeanor, sat Miss Bell. All eyes were upon her — even some opera glasses.

  “She’s a good-looker anyhow,” was one masculine opinion.

  “She’s a peach,” was another, “Tell you — the chap that gets her is well heeled!” said a third.

  The ladies bent their hats toward one another and conferred in flowing whispers; and in the gallery eager confidences were exchanged, with giggles.

  On the small table before Mrs. Dankshire, shaded by a magnificent bunch of roses, lay that core and crux of all parliamentry dignity, the gavel; an instrument no self-respecting chairwoman may be without; yet which she still approaches with respectful uncertainty.

  In spite of its large size and high social standing, the Orchardina Home and Culture Club contained some elements of unrest, and when the yearly election of officers came round there was always need for careful work in practical politics to keep the reins of government in the hands of “the right people.”

  Mrs. Thaddler, conscious of her New York millions, and Madam Weatherstone, conscious of her Philadelphia lineage, with Mrs. Johnston A. Marrow (“one of the Boston Marrows!” was awesomely whispered of her), were the heads of what might be called “the conservative party” in this small parliament; while Miss Miranda L. Eagerson, describing herself as ‘a journalist,’ who held her place in local society largely by virtue of the tacit dread of what she might do if offended — led the more radical element.

  Most of the members were quite content to follow the lead of the solidly established ladies of Orchard Avenue; especially as this leadership consisted mainly in the pursuance of a masterly inactivity. When wealth and aristocracy combine with that common inertia which we dignify as “conservatism” they exert a powerful influence in the great art of sitting still.

  Nevertheless there were many alert and conscientious women in this large membership, and when Miss Eagerson held the floor, and urged upon the club some active assistance in the march of events, it needed all Mrs. Dankshire’s generalship to keep them content with marking time.

  On this auspicious occasion, however, both sides were agreed in interest and approval. Here was a subject appealing to every woman present, and every man but such few as merely “boarded”; even they had memories and hopes concerning this question.

  Solemnly rose Mrs. Dankshire, her full silks rustling about her, and let one clear tap of the gavel fall into the sea of soft whispering and guttural murmurs.

  In the silence that followed she uttered the momentous announcements: “The meeting will please come to order,” “We will now hear the reading of the minutes of the last meeting,” and so on most conscientiously through officer’s reports and committees reports to “new business.”

  Perhaps it is their more frequent practice of religious rites, perhaps their devout acceptance of social rulings and the dictates of fashion, perhaps the lifelong reiterance of small duties at home, or all these things together, which makes women so seriously letter-perfect in parliamentry usage. But these stately ceremonies were ended in course of time, and Mrs. Dankshire rose again, even more solemn than before, and came forward majestically.

  “Members — and guests,” she said impres
sively, “this is an occasion which brings pride to the heart of every member of the Home and Culture Club. As our name implies, this Club is formed to serve the interests of The Home — those interests which stand first, I trust, in every human heart.”

  A telling pause, and the light patter of gloved hands.

  “Its second purpose,” pursued the speaker, with that measured delivery which showed that her custom, as one member put it, was to “first write and then commit,” “is to promote the cause of Culture in this community. Our aim is Culture in the broadest sense, not only in the curricula of institutions of learning, not only in those spreading branches of study and research which tempts us on from height to height” — (“proof of arboreal ancestry that,” Miss Eagerson confided to a friend, whose choked giggle attracted condemning eyes)— “but in the more intimate fields of daily experience.”

  “Most of us, however widely interested in the higher education, are still — and find in this our highest honor — wives and mothers.” These novel titles called forth another round of applause.

  “As such,” continued Mrs. Dankshire, “we all recognize the difficult — the well-nigh insuperable problems of the” — she glanced at the gallery now paying awed attention— “domestic question.”

  “We know how on the one hand our homes yawn unattended” — (“I yawn while I’m attending — eh?” one gentleman in the rear suggested to his neighbor)— “while on the other the ranks of mercenary labor are overcrowded. Why is it that while the peace and beauty, the security and comfort, of a good home, with easy labor and high pay, are open to every young woman, whose circumstances oblige her to toil for her living, she blindly refuses these true advantages and loses her health and too often what is far more precious! — in the din and tumult of the factory, or the dangerous exposure of the public counter.”

  Madam Weatherstone was much impressed at this point, and beat her black fan upon her black glove emphatically. Mrs. Thaddler also nodded; which meant a good deal from her. The applause was most gratifying to the speaker, who continued: