Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  So I set forth on October 8th, with Katharine, Grace, this inadequate dressmaker, a large lunch-basket, my tickets, and all my remaining money in my pocket — ten dollars.

  “What will you do when you get there?” asked anxious friends.

  “I shall earn my own living.”

  “How do you know you can?”

  “I shall have to when I get there.”

  CHAPTER IX. PASADENA

  WITH Pasadena begins my professional “living.” Before that there was no assurance of serious work. To California, in its natural features, I owe much. Its calm sublimity of contour, richness of color, profusion of flowers, fruit and foliage, and the steady peace of its climate were meat and drink to me.

  Dr. Channing, always kind, had engaged for my coming a small cottage near his place, on the corner of Orange Grove Avenue and Arroyo Drive, right opposite “Carmelita,” then the home of Dr. and Mrs. Carr, now a park. To-day that corner lot is worth a fortune. In 1888 I rented that little wood-and-paper four-room house for $10.00 a month.

  It stood in a neglected grove of orange trees rich with fragrant blossoms, roses ran over the roof, tall oleanders stood pink against the sky. There was a lemon verbena in the border by the front path; one day I broke off a new shoot to give a visitor from the east — it was six feet long. When the Channings gave roses to tourist friends, they brought them in a trunk tray.

  Everywhere there was beauty, and the nerve-rest of steady windless weather. Living was cheap in all local supplies. A man came to the door one day, selling white grapes from a wagon-load. These seemed to me a luxury, but I said I’d take ten cents’ worth if he’d give me that. He did, about a peck. The “vegetable Chinaman” came often, with his dainty bundles of green things tied with long grass. For ten cents I could buy a rambling collop they called a mutton chop, big enough to make two meals for an invalid woman and a small child.

  Long, long hours in a hammock under the roses. Occasional times when I could write. I felt like a drowned thing, drifting along under water and sometimes bobbing to the surface.

  At first my tiny house was encumbered and my nerves wrung by the incubus I brought from Providence as “mother’s helper.” She had been a fairly capable dressmaker, in a dull, slow way, taking a week to make a dress. That was not so extreme a time as it looks now, one day for cutting out — the skirt with its lining and facing; the overskirt, to be elaborately draped; the “five-seamed-basque” with its careful fitting, and all the binding and boning, buttons and buttonholes which went to make a dress in those days. But now she proved in all ways useless.

  With the child — and a more amenable darling never was, with intelligent treatment — she failed utterly. She could not cook, she would not sweep nor dust nor wash dishes — said it coarsened her hands! Her density was such that any direction had to be given with a slow explicitness suitable to the under-witted. When unpacking crates and arranging furniture I asked this unpromising Irish woman, picking my words with care, “Have you seen a long wooden shelf with iron brackets?” She answered, “Do you mean a small marble slab?” This she could not have seen, as I did not own such a thing.

  Summing up the wide variety of things she would not do, I finally told her I would ask but one service — that she mend and put away the clean clothes. And that moron would roll up and put in the drawer un-mended hose! She stayed on, in the face of clearest suggestions of departure, until one day when these became direct and urgent requests with directions about trains, she burst into tears and quaveringly protested: “I do believe you are trying to get rid of me!” I was.

  Then I had a boarder for a while, an anachronism. She was the daughter of a country clergyman of the old school, brought up on Addison and Dr. Johnson. Her ideal of social ecstasy was Conversation with the largest of C’s.... She had it too, at the Channings.

  By Christmas Mr. Stetson joined me, hoping that the change might have so bettered my condition that we might even yet reconsider; but it was no use, a dragging year followed, and in January, 1890, he finally left me, called suddenly to the bedside of his dying mother. This was the definite open separation, following the decision of the fall of 1887.

  As the mutual agreement of two rational adults who have found by experience that they cannot live together is not “ground for divorce” as it should be, but is termed “collusion” and prevents it; as my wrecked health could not be traced to any fault of a devoted husband; and as neither of us would lie; it was necessary to conform to some legal requirement as a “cause.” Desertion and non-support was agreed upon, and after a year of this I brought suit.

  The lawyer I went to was a courteous gentleman, and made his inquiries with every consideration for my feelings. I found that “failure to provide” was nugated by the California law of community property; whatever either party earned belonged to both, so if I lived on my own earnings half the sum was still contributed by the absent one. As to desertion— “Does your husband write to you?” “Yes.” “About how often?” “Two or three times a week.” And the case was off.

  The more immediate problem was how to provide, even in that land of low prices, for self and child. I had to start with a present of a hundred dollars, highly appreciated. For the rest I depended on teaching and writing, with the preliminary necessity of getting strong enough to do any steady work.

  The utter failure and loss of my marriage was bitter enough, but compensated by the blessed child; the loss of health was worse, the weakness, the dark, feeble mind. But my religion remained, and my social philosophy, that perception of the organic unity of the group which so dwarfs all individual pain. When able to think clearly I faced the situation thus:

  “Thirty years old. Made a wrong marriage — lots of people do. Am heavily damaged, but not dead. May live a long time. It is intellectually conceivable that I may recover strength enough to do some part of my work. I will assume this to be true, and act on it.” And I did.

  One of the Grand Old Women of California, Mrs. Caroline B. Severance, was so impressed by my sad case, that she wrote a pathetic letter about my lack of any special capacity to earn my bread, to my greataunt, Isabella Beecher Hooker, who forwarded it to Uncle Edward Everett Hale, who referred it to Mr. Stetson, who sent it to me.

  This letter I never mentioned to the dear old lady, who was afterward deeply impressed by my achievements and remained a warm friend as long as she lived, which was to be well over ninety. I went with her once, when she was ninety-three, to call on Mrs. Rebecca Spring, who was ninety-nine — a memorable experience.

  Shriveled and shrunken was the almost centenarian, her eyes mere buttonholes. I felt as helpless before her as a man with a baby. “What do you do with your time?” I ventured. In a high, thin, squeaky voice she replied, “I read nov-els. When I was young they would not let me read them, and now I read them all the time.”

  In that first year of freedom I wrote some thirty-three short articles, and twenty-three poems, besides ten more child-verses. Almost all the poems were given to various progressive papers, the one or two sold brought but two or three dollars. The same with the articles, though I did sell more of them, at prices like ten dollars or six dollars and seventy-five cents.

  Except for two or three bits published before marriage, I had written in six years only a half-dozen or so, as “Nature’s Answer,” and “The Ship” while at home, and two good ones while away, “A Nevada Desert,” and “The Rock and the Sea.” That one was begun on Bass Rock, Narragansett Pier, and finished on the floor after I was at home again. Almost all of my descriptive poetry is about California. To this day, when in that lovely country, the verses come of themselves. The little “Nevada Desert” is good of its kind, though T. B. Aldrich sent it back from the Atlantic, with the remark that it needed the spot of color without which no picture was perfect. He had not seen Nevada.

  With Grace I wrote plays. Our collaboration was fluently happy. One day, entering perfectly into the characters, we simply talked the dialogue, writing
it down as fast as spoken. Not only did we write plays, we acted in them, most successfully. There was an admirable group of amateur actors in Pasadena. Somewhat to my surprise I was usually cast in comic parts — being always willing to make a fool of myself.

  One of the oddest jobs ever offered me was during Pasadena days. A new Opera House, fruit of a “boom” time, awaited final decoration, the selection of seat-coverings, curtains, etc. Grace and I went to see it, I said it was a pity Mr. Stetson was not there to finish the decoration, and lo! they asked me to do it. Never in my life had I done anything of the sort, but on that established precept of mine— “Always accept an opportunity unless it’s wrong” — I undertook this. It was fun too, selecting materials, winding ropes and covering large wooden balls with plush like the hangings, and ornamenting the curtains to the box-entrances with impressive Turkish characters copied from a scarf I had — perhaps some Oriental visitor may have been astonished by what he read.

  In this theater we gave plays for the benefit of local needs, and in one of them I was a too-affectionate old maid, dressed in a costume of elaborate absurdity. To this day I remember the ripple of laughter which greeted my entrance, as I tipped up the huge hoop-skirt to get through, and how that laughter continued all the time I was on. It is a fascinating art, acting. Once I was Lady Teazle and had to wear a corset — the only time in my life; and I almost fainted.

  One of our plays was afterward almost accepted by Mr. Frohman; he meant to bring out in it young Mrs. Blaine, and had it all cast, with penciled names of Georgia Cayvan, Herbert Kelsey and other notables of the period. But, not knowing this we asked for it, and he sent it back.

  The first real success, in that first year, was my poem “Similar Cases,” concerning which I received this unforgettable letter from William Dean Howells:

  BOSTON, June 9th., 1890.

  DEAR MADAM,

  I have been wishing ever since I first read it — and I’ve read it many times with unfailing joy — to thank you for your poem in the April Nationalist. We have nothing since the Biglow Papers half so good for a good cause as “Similar Cases.”

  And just now I’ve read in The Woman’s Journal your “Women of To-day.” It is as good almost as the other, and dreadfully true.

  Yours sincerely,

  Wm. Dean Howells.

  That was a joy indeed. I rushed over to show Grace and the others. There was no man in the country whose good opinion I would rather have had. I felt like a real “author” at last.

  There were classes of some kind among friendly ladies, there were pupils of sorts; I remember one group of small children to whom I taught drawing. Children draw by nature, as do savages, but these had had their powers paralyzed in school. They declared they could not draw, “Can’t you draw anything?” “No, Ma’am.” “Can’t you draw a horse?” “No, Ma’am.”

  Then I proceeded to develop a system which works well. “Oh, come on, let’s draw something. Can you draw a cow?” “No, Ma’am,” “Do you know the difference between a horse and a cow?” They emphatically did and could mention some of the distinctions.

  “Now we’ll draw the horse, anyway, we’ll make his body first, a horse’s body is three-cornered isn’t it?” Loud denial. “Well, it’s square then — no? Is it kind of long like a barrel?” To this they agreed, and we all made a longish roundish body on our various pieces of brown paper. I used wrapping paper and very soft pencils, and we threw away our sketches— “You’re not making pictures to take home,” I told them, “you are just drawing, like dancing or singing.”

  Then the horse’s head: “It’s round like an apple, isn’t it?” It wasn’t, not at all, nor was it, as I further suggested, stuck tight to his body; nor did he have a neck like a swan, not in the least. Those youngsters knew perfectly well what a horse looked like, that his ears stood up and his tail hung down, and presently they all had a shaky sort of a sketch which any one could instantly tell was a horse.

  Then came the triumphant sense of power, of achievement, they could draw! Pursuing this triumph, I continually set them amusing copies, as of hopping hobgoblins, or something of like appeal to the child mind, with such glaring peculiarities of outline and proportion as it was impossible to miss; and they drew them, recognizably. With enough practice of such easy and entertaining sort, their powers of perception and execution quickly developed and the road was open to better work.

  In the scrappy little two-by-four diary I tried to keep that first year, I find but very occasional notes, as “Class, rained, no one came but Mrs. Mitchel.” “Did two cards for Mr. Taylor, charged $3.00.” “Rose Rowley, paid for two lessons, this and next.” “Mrs. Crank calls about giving her son lessons.” “Lessons to Mary Wood, Paint on Mrs. K’s cards. Get extremely tired over them.”

  “Tired” always means that ghastly below-zero weariness, and it was a frequent item, as— “Jan. 26. Tired.” “Mon. 27. Very tired.” “Tues. 28. Tired.” “Wed. 29. Very tired.” “Thurs. 30. Awfully tired.” “Fri. 31. Still tired, weak and sad.” And so on. Again Feb. 22nd, “Am pretty miserable just along here.” “23. Am really miserable.” Then gradually, “25. Sad enough.” “27. Feel better. Arrange ms. to send off.” “March 5. Work with Grace on new play.” “8th. A fine busy day. Am feeling better. Write by myself in the evening.” A comment on lack of strength— “Sweep parlor, proud.”

  There are plenty of blanks in this diary, and mistakes, two weeks with nothing down but two days’ lessons, eight weeks absolutely blank, more with only one lesson set down. The blanks were the drowned time, not even sense to make those scanty notes.

  Yet there was much of pleasantness all along — the dear Channings always good to me — Mrs. Channing had me give her lessons in painting and did well at it; other kind friends, games of whist, and entertainments of various sorts. The Channings had a masquerade, and I made for Harold, Grace’s brother, a zany’s costume, for which I had no pattern. It was the kind having a hood fitting around face and head, neck and shoulders, and with two horns. All this in alternate red and green, tunic, hose and pointed long-toed shoes. I remember my pride in this difficult piece of construction, but do not at all remember what I wore.

  Fortunately for my poor efforts it cost but little to live, I think twenty-five dollars a month would have covered it all for little Katharine and myself. Our small housework I managed except washing, and an occasional day’s cleaning. The little house stood on an exposed corner, Mexicans lived in tiny shacks down in the Arroyo, more than once things were stolen from me if left outside, a rug from the porch, a step-ladder that stood against the house.

  But I refused to worry. “There is little to steal and I am quite willing to be killed,” was my attitude. When tramps came for food I devised a special reception, giving them, not charity but hospitality. “Could you give me something to eat, Ma’am?” “Certainly, I can, come in,” and I set a place at the table with us. When, as was often the case, the man was a decent person, honestly looking for work, this was welcome and appreciated; if he was a hobo he didn’t like it as well. But no one ever presumed on it. Only once did a man come back for more, and he apologetically explained, “You know I chopped wood for you before.”

  On one of those long useless afternoons during the first months in that cottage there came an opportunity for the execution of a long-cherished scheme of revenge, an amusing instance of impersonal resentment and enduring vindictiveness. As a child I had read stories of the shameless persistent intrusion of book-agents, how they refused to take no for an answer, but continued to press their wares regardless of protest, wasting their victim’s time. It had always seemed to me that something might be done in retaliation, now after many years, here was the opportunity.

  Two pests were continuous in California, flies and agents — there was no way of freezing them out. The agents usually came in vehicles, this one did. He dismounted, tied his horse, and approached. It was about two o’clock, the afternoon stretched before me, empty and useless, mine ene
my was delivered into my hand.

  First I told him definitely that I should not buy his book. These people are trained to pay no attention to a “prospect’s” refusal, which disregard is an insult to begin with; however, I cleared my skirts before starting. Down he sat and began on his task.

  I let him talk and he talked a long time, the invalid in the hammock making a good listener. More than once I told him I should not buy, which did not daunt him in the least. If, after some time, he paused for a bit, seemed a trifle discouraged, then a question would set him going again. If, upon long effort to no purpose, he really seemed to think of departure, I asked to look at his volume, or made some further inquiry. When he finally seemed to weary of his monologue and gathered up his things to go, then I began to talk — and I was a good entertainer in those days.

  In this particular case the “prospect” could afford to waste an afternoon, it was wasted anyway. But the agent’s time was probably of some value to him, and he spent three hours of it, entirely in vain. “I told you I should not buy the book,” I gently reminded him, on his departure about five o’clock.

  There is another tale of that time more amusing, and, in intention at least, more creditable. The place was owned by two poor old people — it was their only remaining bit of property. They sold the orange crop on the trees to another shabby old party, who came one morning with horse and wagon, to gather it. He worked all day, but could not quite finish, so he came to me and asked, “Could I put my horse in your barn, Ma’am, and sleep on the porch — I hate to go nine miles home and back just for that little jag?”

  This was something of a poser. I was alone there with my small daughter, and already quite open to gossip and criticism. But principles were strong. “This is a Christian duty,” I decided. “It is in no way wrong.” So I told him the barn was not mine but I had no doubt my neighbor would allow him to stable his horse there, and he might sleep on my porch or in the little lean-to kitchen, as he preferred.