Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  They say the sculptor sees “the statue in the block.” That’s the way I felt. I began to see the kind of character I wanted, and, what’s better, to see how to build it.

  First of all, just as the main tool to work with, comes the power of one’s own will over one’s own body, and mind. The body part I had done a good deal on already, but now I invented a few more exercises, not for strength or skill, but merely for control.

  But the mind part was such fun! For that matter it is yet, and as far as I can see it always will be.

  Just look at your story books. Here’s a man who kills another man — quite justifiably, maybe. All he has to do is to forget it and go about his business. But he can’t forget it! He cannot keep the thought of it out of his mind. It haunts him, makes him miserable.

  I can remember just how it was when I killed that kitten. Father was going to drown it, and he was so rough and horrid about it always. Of course, if you have a lady cat you do have kittens, and drowning is as easy as anything, I suppose. This was the one we always left for a while, for its mother’s sake, and it got hurt, by a dog, I guess, and Father said he’d drown it.

  I determined to chloroform it instead, so it would never know a thing or be scared. Doctor Branson gave me a little bottle and told me how to use it, and I got the poor thing asleep in my lap, and fixed the paper cone with some cloth in the point of it, and put it softly nearer and nearer her unsuspicious little nose.... I hate to think of that murder even now. How she did wiggle! I suppose some instinct warns them.

  But I am sure it was easier for her than to be grabbed by Father, have a stone tied to her poor little neck, and be thrown, all wildly squirming, into cold water. I’m sure it was right to do. Then why should that unpleasant thing keep on agitating my mind?

  So I practised on that. The moment it popped up into my consciousness, down it went quick, and I stood on the lid. In time I got quite rid of it. Almost everybody has some things they would rather not think of. Very well — don’t, then. Self-control — active and passive — that is the first essential.

  Then what? What are the best qualities, and which ones do people like the best? I had such a good time studying over a lot of biographies and asking questions of the other children. Half the time people do not know their own minds. They will tell you they approve of such and such qualities, but the people they like the best don’t have them!

  Of course, I know better now than I did at sixteen, and I dare say I shall know more when I’m twenty, but even as a girl I could see the facts in the case pretty fairly.

  The most truly useful qualities are good sense, good will, courage and “power to act.” But the qualities people like best are cheerfulness, politeness, and taking an interest in them. It’s funny, people cannot abide anybody who is always talking about himself or herself. They call it selfish and self-centered, and self-conscious, and conceited and all sorts of hard names. But they dearly love the people who will smile intelligently, and listen and be interested while they talk about themselves.

  This much I saw right away, and it did not take long to put it into practice. It must be done delicately and within reason, of course. People are suspicious of what they call flattery; it is an honest interest that they want, real sympathy, and to be understood.

  Being understood. How we do ache for it. I wanted it, too, when I was very young, but as soon as I really began to think about it I said, “Me understood? How can they? And if they did, then where would all my plans be?” So I put my foot on that little desire at once and fell to work trying to understand other people.

  Good manners — that goes a long way. I read about those splendid old French noblemen and noblewomen being guillotined and not noticing it, and all sorts of stories of “high courtesy,” and tried to imitate them. Then I ran up against something: people do not like your good manners to be conspicuously better than theirs. Sometimes it is good manners to use very poor ones, just to accommodate. Good manners that don’t show, that was what I tried for, and I had several grades for use on different occasions. Not to get confused and betray myself, I analyzed them a little, and, after all, courtesy is just self-control and good will plus intelligence.

  Cheerfulness was harder. Life was so deeply interesting to me and I worked so hard at it that I was inclined to glower a good deal. However, as soon as you’ve got your self-control going, you can acquire any characteristic you please — within reason.

  I took Peggy for a pattern at first. Dear Mother was sweet and patient, but not cheerful. How could she be, having Father to put up with night and day? And he wasn’t cheerful, dear knows. Neither was Alison.

  It has taken me several years to get all these characteristics well in use, but I have. Peggy told me only yesterday that old Mrs. Watson told Mother she thought I had a “lovely character.” I’m pleased, of course.

  Well, one day I said to myself: “Come, here you are sixteen and over — all this training going on and nothing happening. Aren’t there ever going to be any adventures?”

  In books things happen. In life you have to make them happen. I decided I wanted to travel.

  Travel for a young woman means visiting, and, generally, visiting relations. I knew I couldn’t get to see Father’s relations even if I wanted to. Mother’s were all in Pennsylvania, and there we were up in Massachusetts.

  Grandpa Chesterton lived on a big farm. His father had kept an inn and made a nice little fortune on it. Grandpa kept it, too, for a while. Then put his money with a real hotel in Philadelphia and got richer, then into a summer hotel by the ocean and got richer still. Then he sold them both and “retired.”

  There he was, on his big beautiful farm with plenty of money, and here was poor Mother having to beg and tease Father for every cent she got.

  You see, Grandpa could not bear Father. (I don’t wonder in the least.) He did not want Mother to marry him, and Mother just would, and did, and there we were.

  At first Grandpa felt horribly about it, naturally. Then he sort of got over it and used to have us visit him, and Mother was foolish enough to persuade him to help Father in his schemes. But Father’s schemes never came out right and Grandfather got angry all over again. Mother didn’t say it like this, but this is what happened; I could make it out easily enough from what she said.

  Grandpa hadn’t been to see us, nor we to see him, since I was ten, though of course Mother wrote. He wouldn’t ask Father there, and she wouldn’t leave Father.

  Then I began to write him letters — nice, simple, affectionate ones, but funny, too. I knitted him a pair of socks, just to show I could knit, and made him a blanket wrapper, to show I could sew. Grandpa was a widower, you see, and even if he was rich he liked to have people think of him.

  And I made him some jelly — the kind he liked best. I wrote a letter on purpose to ask him. And once, a particular kind of fruitcake Mother had the recipe of. You can’t buy it.

  When it came vacationtime, I asked Grandpa if I mightn’t come and visit him. I said Mother was pretty well, and Peggy could help her at home, and I had saved all I had for the trip; that I was quite grown up now and it would only take one day, starting early. I said I was afraid Father wouldn’t like it, but that I hadn’t asked him yet, and maybe he wouldn’t let me.

  That annoyed Grandpa, I think. Anyway, he said he should like nothing better than a visit from his industrious granddaughter, and sent me a ticket with careful directions, and told where he would meet me in New York. This seemed a pity, but I should at least have half the trip by myself, and something might happen.

  The real adventure was in getting started. Father never would consent to it, I knew, but it is one thing to refuse to allow a person to go and another to get them back again. I was sorry for Mother, too. Father would blame her, of course, but I had been so careful all winter, so good and so ordinary that I felt as if I should explode if something didn’t happen.

  This wasn’t disobedience, for no one had forbidden me to go. It was just enterprising.
I packed all I needed in a flat brown paper package and added to it some stuff we had to change at the store. It wasn’t going to be a long visit, that was pretty sure. I did not have to take much.

  After Father had gone downtown I trotted off, not telling Mother, because if she didn’t know, Father couldn’t scold her quite so much. I didn’t sneak. I told Mother I was going to change that gingham at Browning’s. I was and I did. Lying is not necessary. I always tell the truth — when I tell anything — nothing but the truth. As to telling the whole truth, nobody can do that — we don’t know it.

  Then I mailed a note that she’d get before dinner telling her all about it, and that I’d slipped off so as not to have to tease Father. I sent her Grandpa’s letter and all, and told her I would let Father know downtown. I did. He got my letter by the last mail and was displeased, of course. That was to be expected. But by the time he got his letter I was in New York with Grandpa.

  But the best fun was my own journey alone. I had been over the road before, as a child, and had plenty of directions, but it was exciting, all the same. So much of my life was inside, so many of the things I did I had to keep to myself, and behaving just so to all the people about me was still so much of an effort that it was just magnificent to be At Large. It rested me — miles of me.

  I am not pretty nor in any way conspicuous. Sort of mouse-brown hair, bluish eyes. (I always wished I’d had the Italian eyes, but Peggy got those. Mine were Scotch.) A healthy-looking young woman — who wouldn’t be with all the training I’ve done? — but not especially attractive.

  The compliments I’ve had are from old ladies and gentlemen and not very many of them, but they please me. I am “quiet” and “well mannered” and “always pleasant,” they say.

  I sat there in the car with my bundle and little shopping bag, holding my ticket, and looking like any young woman going somewhere, but I felt like Balboa.

  Crowds of people got in. A big woman tried to sit down by me, and I politely got up and gave her the window. Then I was able to get out when I wanted to. Some people were pigs — took two seats, facing, and filled them with bundles. A little woman with a child and a baby couldn’t find a place and had to sit on the square-backed end seat and hold them both.

  When the conductor came through I asked him if there wouldn’t be room for that little woman with the baby in front of me where two women were taking up more than their share of the seats. Conductors are generally nice to women with babies, and I suppose they have their troubles with the piggy kind often enough. He scowled a little, went and spoke to the baby woman, brought her back, and piled the baggage of the other two up over their heads and under their feet. They had to sit together then, and wished they hadn’t turned the other seat over, I guess. Small children are tiresome neighbors sometimes.

  By and by I borrowed the baby. I like babies and they like me, and this was a jolly one. The big woman beside me had gorgeous clothes and she didn’t seem to fancy having the child touch her.

  “Isn’t he a dear?” I said, smiling up into her face. But as soon as there was another seat vacant she squeezed out and took it. I made a mental note for future use: “When you don’t like your seatmate, borrow a baby.”

  Then the baby began to play peekaboo with his sister between the heads of the two woman in front of me, and by and by they changed, too, getting the brakeman to take their baggage. Then I slipped into their seat, and the baby went to sleep with his mother and the little girl with me. It was a real family scene.

  But she got out, more people came in, the seat was turned again, and then a man came and sat by me. I didn’t like him at all. His breath was like Father’s, but more tobaccoey. His clothes were too showy. He had big rings, and a big watch chain and a big scarf pin. He looked me over a while, and then spoke to me. I felt a real thrill. This was going to be an adventure, I hoped.

  “Traveling alone, miss?” he asked.

  Anybody could see I was, but I said, “Yes.”

  “Going far?”

  “To New York,” I answered.

  I could see him meditating on that, and I didn’t like the way he meditated. He looked The Villain in books. I had so wanted to meet a Villain!

  “Going to your folks?” he asked in a very friendly voice — too friendly.

  “I’ve left home,” I said, and drew myself up a little and turned my face away. But I could see him, for he leaned forward with his arm on the back of the seat in front of us and looked me over.

  “Got friends living in New York?” he next inquired.

  “No,” I said, rather reluctantly.

  He sat back at that, pulled his waistcoat down, thought a minute and then made some general remarks about “the big city.”

  Presently he asked if I was expecting to get work in New York. I said I hoped to. I did; always had, do yet. Some day I will.

  “Do you know what hotel you’re going to?” was his next question.

  “I can ask a policeman, can’t I?” I said, looking up at him.

  “Don’t ask anything of a New York policeman,” he said heartily. “Just you trust to me, young lady. I’ll take you to a nice hotel.”

  “I don’t want an expensive one,” I said carefully, and he chuckled over that.

  “Oh, no,” he said, “not an expensive one.”

  Grandpa’s letter had said “Give your bag to a porter and come to the ladies’ waiting room. I will be there near the restroom. If we miss each other tell the matron and wait there. That is safer than by the gate.”

  I had no bag and wouldn’t let the man take my little bundle, but I told him I had to go to the ladies’ room first, and he trotted right along and said he’d wait for me.

  Oh, it was fine — just splendid. Even if Grandpa hadn’t been there, I knew there was a woman who took care of young women traveling alone, and I’d tell her. But Grandpa was there, and he’s a big, strong old man and has a temper, even if he is a Quaker.

  I told The Villain to wait a minute, I’d be right back, and I was — with Grandpa. Grandpa collared him and dragged him to a big policeman, though he struggled awfully.

  I’d afraid he did not spend the night in that nice hotel.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Grandpa was pleased to see me, I think, but got very angry about that man. I did not tell him how he had sat by me and talked. I just said, “He got out with me and would carry my bag.” That was true. And I began to ask Grandpa questions about the farm so as to take up his mind.

  “I can’t stay long,” I said. “Mother was glad to have me come, I’m sure, but I didn’t dare tell Father until today. I’m afraid I’m very naughty, Grandfather, but I just... left word for Father. I knew he’d stop me if I asked, and I had the ticket, and I did want to come so. Are you angry with me?”

  He tried to tell me that it was wrong to come away like that, and I was very meek about it.

  “I can’t say I’m sorry, though,” I told him, “because really I’m glad! But Father’ll be sure to write for me to come back at once. And you’ll have to read it, and then I’ll have to go right home....

  “Never mind. Tell me about the cows, Grandfather, and the white-tiled stalls, and the white clothes of the dairymen, and everything.”

  I had been reading up about model dairy farms. I read somewhere that Edward Everett Hale said if anybody would spend one winter reading up on any chosen subject they would know more about it than anybody else except the great specialists.

  I’d never given a whole winter to anything yet, but I’d found this (our librarian had helped me to it): if you want to know something about something quick, you go to the most recent encyclopedia and get your outline; then you look up some of the books mentioned and you finish with Poole’s Index — get the very latest articles in the technical magazines. In a day or two you can learn lots and lots, especially if you know how to pick out the most important things, not clutter up your mind with too many details. The librarian showed me that part. Seems to me they ought to teach us
that in school.

  Well, I had quite a fund about Grandpa’s subjects, and I chattered some and listened more, and asked him if he’d seen the article about Lord Esterville’s new farm in The Country Leader, or if he’d read Mr. Brushe’s book on milk. That man is a doctor, a veterinarian and a dairyman — he ought to know. This was while we were on the train going to Philadelphia, and while we stopped at Trenton I saw a telegraph boy coming through the car calling “Chesterton! Chesterton!” Grandpa had stepped out to get a paper, so I said to the boy, “It’s for my grandfather. He’ll be back in a minute. It is expected.” I had had a dreadful feeling that Father would telegraph, but I never dreamed he’d do it on the train, never knew anybody could. So the boy skipped off, and Grandpa came back, but the telegram was in my pocket.

  I had peeked at the name at the end, but I didn’t read it. I didn’t mean to. As for Grandpa, he could honestly say that he never got the telegram. He never did.

  I breathed a little easier then. They’d expect me back right away, and would get my letter instead. I wrote a nice one to Father, telling what a nice time I was having and how grateful I was, just as if he’d sent me with his blessing; and a card to Mother, too, telling her I’d written to Father, that Grandpa met me all right and everything was lovely. Then they’d write, of course, but I should at least have been there.

  On the other train I was pretty still. Grandpa asked me if I was tired, but I said no, it wasn’t that. Was I homesick already? “Oh, no!” I said. “No, indeed, but I was afraid that... Tell me, has a grandfather any rights?”

  “What do you mean, child?” he asked.

  “Why, Mother is glad to have me come — she’d come herself, you know, only — only...”

  “I know,” he said grimly, nodding his head.

  “And I’m as glad as can be to come, to see you and the wonderful farm, but suppose Father shouldn’t like it a bit? Sometimes Father is a little... well, he doesn’t seem to realize how much other people want a thing. Suppose he wrote that you must send me right back. Would you have to do what he told you?”