Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  “I want to know everything — as far as I can.

  “I want to be strong, skillful, an armory of concealed weapons. I want to be far more able than anybody knows.

  “And then what? What am I to do with it?

  “Play with people. Do things with them, and for them.

  “And never be known!”

  Then I’d tear that paper fine, or burn it.

  I’ve forgotten to put down about the things I’ve learned already.

  All those housekeeping things didn’t count; they came in at odd minutes.

  Sewing was better in a way: the science of it at school, the practice of it at home. I helped Mother with the mending. I made dresses for dolls for the Sunday School Christmas trees. I made dresses for poor children for the Sunday School sewing circle. I made aprons and petticoats and nighties and things. Then I got some cheap, pretty cotton stuff and made a housedress for Mother — a real pretty little one. She was so pleased. Just here and there, to keep my hand in, I made things, experimenting a good deal. Now I can do any kind of plain sewing, mend and darn well, and really cut out and make dresses. I don’t propose to do it, as a business, but it’s one step. While I was at it I got leave to take some regular lessons with Mrs. Folsom, a dressmaker who went to our church. That was to learn about workrooms, how they did it professionally. And I learned — a lot. The way they waste cloth, the way they take more orders than they can fill and keep putting people off, not having things done when they said they would. I made notes on Dressmakers in my secret diary.

  Meanwhile I learned shorthand, just for fun. You never know when you may need a thing. There was a girl in school whose sister did it and she got her sister to lend me the books and help a little now and then. Peggy helped me in dictation, and I’d work at it while Father read aloud, or in church. I got used to Mr. Cutter’s delivery, and when his secretary was sick I asked if I mightn’t help him a little while, and got used to really doing it.

  Then there was typing, of course. Father had a typewriter, but refused to let me touch it. He certainly was not a helpful parent, unless by calling out ingenuity.

  It was perfectly absurd that I should have to fuss and scheme and go out of the house to learn, when it stood there all day, idle. So I made up my mind that I had a perfect right to use it, and began. First I carefully watched Father do it. Then I studied the book of directions very closely. My very first lesson, to myself, I managed one day when I was really alone in the house. That was a godsend. I had bought some cheap paper to practice on, and I put in a whole evening, in half-hour spells, with rest between.

  Then I sat boldly down to it when only Alison was about. She didn’t realize that it was forbidden, but suspected it. I didn’t think she’d tell, and she didn’t.

  Peggy didn’t, of course. But Mother was different. It frightened her to see me deliberately disobeying Father. She didn’t want to tell him, of course, but she said it was a sin — disobedience. I quoted the text where it says: “Children obey your parents — in the Lord.”

  “Doesn’t that mean there are times when you don’t have to?” I asked. “I’m not doing the least harm, Mother. You can see how softly I work, and I’ve made such progress already. See? Now, don’t you tell me not to, Mother dear, because it’s not your machine and I don’t believe Father’ll really mind when he sees how nicely I can do it.”

  He caught me at it at last. He came home early one day, and, of course, he made an awful fuss. But I was quiet and gentle and polite — just stood there and let him tear up my sheet of paper and scold. I didn’t say a thing, not a thing, except those little mild stave-off remarks you have to make. You see when a parent is angry, he scolds — or she, if it is some other girl’s parent. And scolding is silly, always silly. I noticed that almost in infancy.

  “What do you mean by doing so and so?” they shout — as if the child had deep-laid intentions. (As a matter of fact, I had, very often, but most children don’t.)

  “How many times must I tell you not to do that?” they demand furiously. I always felt like making an estimate, saying, “Eight,” at a venture, or, “Fifteen.” But if you try to reply to a plain question they call it “impertinence.” Then they call names, complain of the trouble you make. Sometimes I’ve really heard them say, “I’m sure I don’t know what to do with you,” in a fierce voice, using their own failure as a club. Of course the child might say politely, “I’m sorry for that,” or “Too bad,” but they’d only catch it worse. But you have to say “Yes,” and “No,” and “I’m sorry,” or “I won’t do it again.” If you say absolutely nothing it makes them more and more enraged. “Do you hear me?” they demand, knowing that you can’t help it. “What have you to say for yourself?” or “Answer me this minute!” they yell.

  Being scolded is like surf bathing — you have to know when to duck and when to jump. I was very skillful, because Father scolded so much.

  Well, I wriggled through this scolding safely. When he got to a certain point I put my handkerchief to my eyes and ran out of the room. You mustn’t do that too soon or you get called back and have to take it worse, but after a while you can — when you see that they can’t think of much more to say.

  Father stamped around quite a good deal that time, but he had to leave the house every day, and the machine only had a cloth cover. Before he caught me again I had really learned to do it. I looked up with a pleasant smile, and showed him my page with modest pride.

  “See, Father,” I said gaily, “I can do a page in twelve minutes now.”

  “I have forbidden you to touch that machine,” he said. “You are a disobedient child — you...”

  I was about sixteen then, and I smiled up in his face and said: “Please forgive me, Father. I know I was disobedient. I am very sorry to displease you.” That was true, I wouldn’t say I was sorry for disobeying — I wasn’t. “But I have really learned to do it nicely. It can’t hurt the machine, can it? And some day I may really need to know typewriting — girls do, you know....”

  He scolded quite a good deal, but I have noticed this: if you have really done a thing, if it is accomplished, then even a scolding person can’t think of so much to say. Besides what they say does not matter — the thing is done.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As I look back now at the things I did when I was twelve, they seem foolish enough. One does not know much at twelve, even a girl. And boys! How they do behave!

  “Boys will be boys,” people say in a fatalistic sort of manner, as if nothing on earth could prevent their acting that way. I wish I’d had a brother. He’d have been a boy, of course, but I’m pretty sure he’d have been a modified boy.

  I knew plenty of boys quite intimately while I was a child, and made the most of my opportunities. When they got older and used to flock together more and refuse to play with girls, while at the same time they’d stand on corners watching them and talking about them, I lost my grip, to a certain extent.

  The girls who were most popular with boys at that age were the dressy ones, pretty, and what I called foolish. But the boys liked them, that was plain. For some time I considered that line of action, whether it was worthwhile. Books are full of it, of course. Even as a child I could see that.

  There was Becky Sharp — intelligent enough, but doing things by such small methods! They all did. Even Jael and Judith seemed crude to me. There was that story in the Apocrypha — where the King set that riddle as to what was the strongest thing, and one said, “the sword,” and one “wine,” and one “the King,” but the prize answer was “women.” They could manage the King!

  I examined this theory carefully. Wanting to be strong, as I did, to accomplish all sorts of things, I said to myself: “See here, if this is the best way really, I’ll try it.”

  So I studied the matter. First I looked at the most successful ones as I knew them in real life. They were awfully foolish girls, as a rule. Some of them didn’t seem to know what they were doing at all. You might as well praise h
oney for drawing flies. It didn’t seem worthwhile to me.

  Then I looked at the smart ones, those you read about in history, or in fiction, that had this wonderful power. Mary, Queen of Scots, had it, and much good it did her, poor thing. Helen of Troy had it. Cleopatra had it. No end of prominent women had it, but what did they do with it, and how did they come out in the end?

  What I can’t understand is how people can read history, or fiction, for that matter, and not learn anything. This attraction of theirs really is like honey — they only succeed in being eaten, after all. For another thing, all their wonderful power is so short-lived. It is only young ones who have it, apparently, and surely anyone knows youth doesn’t last forever.

  I was planning for life, a long life, with lots of fun. Why, it’s no secret. Life is a long thing — if you don’t die young — and that I never was afraid of.

  Any child knows he or she is going to grow up — if they know anything. Any girl knows she’s going to be a woman. Any woman knows she’s going to be an old woman, if she doesn’t die sooner.

  But do we do anything about it? Not we. We all act as if time stopped by about day after tomorrow. Well, I am planning to live a long time, ninety or a hundred years, maybe, and I want to have fun all the time — not just between fifteen and thirty, or even forty.

  So I concluded I’d rather miss that one kind of power and try for others that would keep.

  When I was about fourteen I heard a woman doctor lecture on hygiene at our school. It didn’t seem to have much effect on most girls, but I was tremendously impressed.

  That was the beginning of my training, physical training, I mean. I set up a Goal in my secret diary. “I mean to be Strong,” I put down. “As strong as I possibly can. And well, of course.”

  This is no mystery either. As to being well, that’s easy. Air is the first thing — all the fresh air you can get. Peggy didn’t like it, so I finally succeeded in getting a room to myself, namely the attic. There were windows at each end, and a skylight. It was big, with lots and lots of room, and high in the middle.

  It was hot in summer, but heat isn’t unhealthy if you have air, and it was cold in winter, but cold isn’t unhealthy either. I confess I did dress in the bathroom when it was very cold, but then being comfortable is no harm in itself. The point was that I had air and space and could do things.

  As to food, as far as I could see, people were healthy on all kinds of food not absolutely bad, if they had good digestion.

  As to clothes, well, I can’t stop here to begin to write what I thought about clothes as I was growing up, or what I think now. But as soon as I learned to sew I could see to it that mine did me no harm, anyhow. I even had some influence on Peggy’s, but not much. Dear Peggy. She is so pretty, and so sweet. But I’m glad she has me to take care of her.

  Well, I began very carefully. It was easy to get the idea from books, and to learn the dangers. The danger seemed to be mostly in straining oneself, overdoing it. Boys, of course, are always trying to stump one another, and as pleased as Punch when they can beat the other.

  I hadn’t anybody to get ahead of. I just wanted to be strong and limber and supple and skillful, not just to show it. And I wanted to build it in slowly, for keeps. So I began to do the exercises we had at school just a few minutes before I went to bed and when I got up.

  They didn’t amount to much. I soon invented more. It is so funny to me, the solemn way people talk about “systems” of physical culture. We’ve only got one kind of body, and there are only four limbs to it. One has trunk muscles, neck muscles, and arm and leg muscles, and there you are. One has nerves, too, and no amount of muscular strength is enough without nervous coordination.

  Peggy and I played badminton in the attic. We had net shuttlecocks. Those parchment ones are too noisy. We made such a record that I got some of the boys interested and we had tournaments. It was pretty good fun for rainy days.

  Then I started “graces,” made some hoops and sticks from an old Girls’ Own Book description. Peggy liked it, and so did other girls; the boys thought it was “sissyfied.” We girls used to play in the yard on still days. It’s awfully pretty.

  Both Father and Mother disapproved of dancing, but running in that town was out of the question — for girls. But I said to myself, “Dancing is no mystery. I’ll read about it.” And I did.

  I set to work in my attic, five minutes a day, ten minutes a day — a very little counts if you do it regularly. Such fun! I practiced the hardest steps I could find, and invented others, just as earnestly as I did things with my arms, and I’d recite poetry for music. It is merely keeping time, you see, and you can beat time to words as well as mere sounds.

  “Horatius at the Bridge,” that was a splendid dance, with marchings and posturings no end. Really “no end.” It was so long I never could dance all through it.

  “The Green, Green Gnome” was a beauty, so swift and light. Then there was my favorite “Songs of Seven.” I made some lovely dances to go with that. It was really pretty work, too, and nobody knew about it. In the first place I had a good floor, and in the second place I made it my business from the very first to do it all like a pussycat — just moccasins, or barefoot, and coming down with the bent knee, never any jar. To dance like a Bacchante and make no noise, that was fun!

  A big rope up over the rafters gave me all the arm work I wanted. One’s own weight is enough to handle. I got so I could walk with my hands along a horizontal rope, or up and down one, just as easily. And so on, and so on.

  Now that I’m eighteen and Mother wants me to be so proper, I sit and walk as quietly as anybody, but in my attic! Mother has no idea how far I can jump or how many times I can chin myself. The beauty of my plan is that I do what I want to, and never mention it. I feel like a happy miser.

  All that is a solid success. I’m ever so strong and nobody knows it. As soon as I can I’m going to learn jujitsu too, and fencing.

  But some three years ago I realized that bodies and brains aren’t everything. What happened was this:

  An old cousin of Father’s came to see us. He had endless relatives in Scotland, but this one apparently had money enough to travel, and came over here. Father would have her with us, of course. She was a tall, stiff, rawboned old lady. I didn’t like her a bit, especially as she criticized Mother right to her face, made a lot of extra work and care, and then found fault with her for doing it.

  My general opinion was that the sooner she left the better, and I devoted my energies to getting rid of her. By lifting a board in my attic I found a place down in the side of the house, between the lath and plaster and the clapboards, and dropped a little arrangement on a string that made queer knockings in the night on her bedroom wall. On her windowpanes, hung invisibly from above, slow scratchings kept her awake. She’d open the window and look every way, but you can’t see a black thread in the dark, especially when it only reaches the top pane. By daylight it wasn’t there.

  She was a superstitious old lady, and it scared her; also she was a suspicious old lady. She never found out that I had any hand in it, but she used to look at me queerly sometimes. I was too young then to seem as absolutely ordinary as I can now. Well, she left sooner than she meant to, and I was pleased.

  In about two years that old lady died. She left Mother a legacy. Not Father, mind you, but Mother. And she left Peggy, dear, pretty sister Peggy, who hadn’t been exceptionally polite, but had done a lot of little favors for “Mistress Feistonhaw,” as Father called her (her name was Marget MacDougal Featherstonehaugh — an awful one), she left Peggy a set of cairngorms [smoky quartz]. They were beauties that had been in the family ever so long.

  I didn’t mind not getting anything half as much as I minded being mistaken. Here I’d thought she was horrid, blaming Mother so, and all the time she was sorry for her. If I had been too successful and had driven her away sooner, maybe it would have cost Mother that thousand pounds.

  I may say right here that the money didn�
��t do Mother any good. Father wanted it, of course, for one of his inventions. It was just the thing. It would save his life and make all our fortunes, and Mother couldn’t refuse him anything. Pretty soon there was nothing left of Cousin Marget’s legacy but the cairngorms and my lesson.

  Here it is, in my secret diary:

  “Wrong step. It is easy to be hateful and do mischievous tricks. It is harder to be kind and serviceable and make friends — but much wiser.”

  That was the beginning of my course of inside training, which I found even more fascinating than all the physical kind. There is only that little set of nerves and muscles to work with in physical culture, but once you begin on your mind there is no end to it.

  It was tremendously exciting, this discovery — like being born and knowing it. So far I had just used the faculties I had to do things with and had been fairly successful. Then I had seen the necessity for health and strength — anybody can see that. In a year or two I had done wonders as quietly as could be.

  Now it suddenly dawned on me that here was a field of growth beyond anything I had ever thought of before. I could improve my mental outfit. I was then about fifteen and a half. I can remember that day very well.

  I went upstairs to my beloved garret, got out a big piece of paper, and began to set down the qualities I had and the qualities I hadn’t, where what I had were weak and could be improved, or were undesirable and better left off, and the ones I wanted most that I needed in my business.

  Here it is, again in my diary: “It is easier to do harm than to do good. Any small boy can do mischief — or girl, either. Doing good things is more difficult and therefore more interesting. Most of all you need to care for people, truly, so as to help them and to make friends. The more friends you have the more powerful you are!”

  Then I considered the most popular people I knew and had read about. To my surprise I found that it was not by any means the best ones who were the best liked, nor even the ones who did the most for people. But certain qualities were attractive always.