Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  And what did that bad baby do?

  “Coo,” said the mother soft and still,

  And the daughter answered loud and shrill,

  “To-who! To-whit, to-whoo!”

  “No, no,” said the mother, “no,

  I do not like it so,

  Such fowls as owls I do not love —

  Where is my little cooing dove?

  Now coo, little coo-bird, coo!”

  And what did that bad baby do?

  “Coo!” said the mother, soft and still,

  And the daughter answered loud and shrill,

  “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

  “No, no,” said the mother, “no,

  I do not like it so,

  I want no cock-a-biddies in my bed!”

  And she brooded her nestling warm and said,

  “Now coo, little coo-bird, coo!”

  And what did that dear baby do?

  “Coo,” said the mother, soft and slow,

  And the daughter answered, sweet and low,

  “Coo-oo, Coo-oo, Coo!”

  We had happy years together, nine of them, the last four she was mine alone. In Oakland she had a safe and quiet street, a good yard, a friend of mine opposite with a family of children to play with, and a pleasant little school. When I came home from my work anywhere, toward supper-time, I could see that little red-capped figure on the gate-post, watching for me, and she would come, running....

  Some unbelievable brute of a woman told the child that her mother was getting a divorce, that her father would undoubtedly marry again, and then she would have a stepmother! She came to me in tears. “Darling,” said I, “if Papa does marry again it will be Grace Channing,” and the smiles broke through the tears like April sunshine. Grace she had known and loved since babyhood, loved as another mother.

  Then came the end of the Oakland effort. My mother was dead. My friend on whom I had so counted, was gone. I was not able to carry the boarding-house, and there was new work opening for me in San Francisco, but in a place unsuitable for a child. It was arranged that she should go to her father for a while, my father, going East, taking her with him.

  Since her second mother was fully as good as the first, better in some ways perhaps; since the father longed for his child and had a right to some of her society; and since the child had a right to know and love her father — I did not mean her to suffer the losses of my youth — this seemed the right thing to do. No one suffered from it but myself. This, however, was entirely overlooked in the furious condemnation which followed. I had “given up my child.”

  To hear what was said and read what was printed one would think I had handed over a baby in a basket. In the years that followed she divided her time fairly equally between us, but in companionship with her beloved father she grew up to be the artist that she is, with advantages I could never have given her. I lived without her, temporarily, but why did they think I liked it? She was all I had.

  While arranging for her journey I never once let her feel that it was pain, a break, anything unusual. It was time to go and see her dear Papa — and she went, happily enough. A pretty little outfit was prepared, a small alligator hand-bag was a special treasure, and full explanation was given about the old gentlemen she was to travel with — there were three of them, taking a state-room.

  I took her to the uptown station in Oakland, where the Overland trains stopped for passengers; her grandfather appeared; she climbed gaily aboard. She hurried to the window and looked out, waving to me. She had long shining golden hair. We smiled and waved and threw kisses to each other. The train went out, farther and farther till I couldn’t see her any more....

  That was thirty years ago. I have to stop typing and cry as I tell about it. There were years, years, when I could never see a mother and child together without crying, or even a picture of them. I used to make friends with any child I could so as to hold it in my arms for a little....

  What were those pious condemners thinking of? I had lost home and husband, my mother was dead, my father, never close at all, was now removed across the continent. My recent “best friend” had, as it were, soured on my hands, I had no money at all — I had borrowed again to pay for Katharine’s ticket and to move, and left failure behind me, and debt. I explained to the landlady that I would pay her as soon as I could, and moved across the bay.

  Some years later, my father was speaking favorably to some one as to my methods in child culture.

  “You ought to be able to judge,” said I. “You took the child all across the continent, leaving her mother; one nine-year-old girl with three old gentlemen — how did she behave?”

  “She behaved,” he answered carefully, “as if she was trying to make it as comfortable as possible for every one she was with.”

  She always did. She always has....

  CHAPTER XII. SAN FRANCISCO

  OAKLAND and San Francisco are so intermixed during these years, my work taking me back and forth so frequently, that the record overlaps. That “work” was varied and of considerable amount. There were the little classes, the lectures, paid and unpaid, some preaching, much club work, and always the writing. Here is one of those forecasts by which I was always trying to lift myself by my boot-straps:

  “May 31st. 1893. Age — near 33. Probably forty years’ time before me. Desired to accomplish in that time — the utmost attainable advance of the human race.” (Modest purpose!) “Means of accomplishment, the perception and transmission of truth, applicable truth. Most immediate necessity, the maintenance of self and child.”

  Follows this liberal estimate: “To maintain self alone would require,

  Furnished room

  $ 5.00

  Meals

  15.00

  Clothes and extras

  10.00

  per month

  $30.00

  Ten dollars a week would do me well. One good day’s work a week would take care of me, one to rest, five to give.” This was before the child left.

  Then I figure the cost with Katharine, if I could keep that nice house, with a few boarders to make it go, and another page with a definite program. All these loose pages, accumulating along the years, mark the incessant effort to drag that shaky mind back to its task, to cheer it, stimulate it, comfort it, through self-suggestion to make it go. So I plan:

  June 1st, 1893. Rise at six. Be through housework at nine. Write from nine till twelve. Be through lunch work at two. Nap. Go out till five-thirty. Be through supper work at seven. Free writing must be done evenings. Go to bed by ten if possible. Take a tonic. Eat well. Simply train and work for a year and a half. [I was planning to get all my debts paid by that time.] Will have enough then to take a good rest. Write $5.00 worth a day.

  I find this list of undertakings:

  I belong to

  The P.C.W.P.A.

  The Ebell Society.

  The Woman’s Alliance.

  The Economic Club.

  The Parents Association.

  The State Council of Women.

  For these responsibilities I allow “W. P. A. one afternoon a month, and two days more on an average; Ec. Club two afternoons and one evening; Ebell two evenings and two more to prepare; Pa. Assn. two evenings; St. C. of W. one afternoon....”

  As to duties— “W.P.A., I am on Child Labor committee and also on education. I wish to ascertain and present information on these subjects. Try to keep up the general ideal. Ebell; Furnish four more sociological papers. Ec. Club; Write papers, read, discuss, exhort, work. Pa. Assn., Organize and push the general society. Plan for the work at large. Visit local groups as desired. Make it go. St. Council, Help organize. Help push. A large slow thing this. Should be a City council also.”

  I certainly was a willing worker.

  The Rhode Island effort at divorce having failed, I started another, and by some slight improvement in California law, or a better lawyer perhaps, this time succeeded, the decree being granted in April, 1894. I was surprised at the sense o
f lightness, of ultimate freedom which came with that document. This time, I having the divorce, there was no uproar in the papers about it, no articles on “Should Artistic Men Marry?” no noise at all. Having made the painfully frequent mistake of an untenable marriage, we were at last free from its legal bonds, and before the year was over my conscience was finally relieved of much regret for his sake by Mr. Stetson’s happy marriage to my lifelong friend, Grace Channing.

  That continued friendship was what the pure-minded San Franciscans could not endure. Hatred, jealousy, preliminary misdemeanors, they would have accepted as quite natural. That we three should have remained in friendly correspondence, with mutual understanding, affection and respect, through these hard years, was to them incomprehensible.

  They wrote me of the wedding. My sense of gladness, of relief, that some happiness could have been established after so much unhappiness, was intense. I had moved across the bay by that time, and that evening, fresh on the heels of the news, came a San Francisco reporter. I knew at once what he wanted and received him with a high, serene, utterly insensitive demeanor.

  He found it difficult to assail that glassy surface, and got no help from me. Then he produced a clipping and handed it to me, inquiring, “Have you seen this?” I took it calmly, read it through calmly, handed it back calmly. “No,” said I, “I had not seen it.” It was an account of the wedding, of which fortunately I had already heard by letter. Suppose I had not known. Suppose I had cared, suffered, found it a cruel shock — think of the man’s bringing such a notice to a woman and sitting there to “observe her reactions.” I made no comment at all, remained as serenely indifferent as before. It was really difficult for him.

  “The Call sent me to see if you had anything to say on the subject,” he essayed, rather feebly.

  “Do you think a self-respecting woman would have anything to say to a newspaper on such a subject?” I gently inquired. He did not. And since the Call was at the time a decent newspaper they said little beyond reprinting the news item.

  Returning to Oakland, the most distinctive step of the three years was the publication of my first book of poems, In This Our World, 1893. It was a tiny thing, 120 pages, about six and a half by five inches. Seventy-five poems. It was printed by McCombs and Vaughn of Oakland, two of my Socialist friends, on sight of a subscription list covering the cost — some $75.00 I think.

  I have the little blank book with the names of those first subscribers. The most important was my friend Harriet Howe, who put up $50.00. The edition was in all 1500 copies. I made the design on the cover, based on Olive Schreiner’s Three Dreams In a Desert.

  These little books I placed in local book-stores, to be sold on commission, and also, in my ignorance, sent them to such stores in the East, asking the dealer to sell them, take out his commission, and send me the remainder. One rather large number I placed with the Humboldt Publishing Company of New York, whose cheap editions of popular science I had enjoyed — not knowing they were pirated. Nothing was heard from them, although I wrote making inquiries. What did a piratical publishing house in the East care about an unknown and visibly impracticable woman in California?

  Some years later, being in New York, I wandered into that company’s office and mildly asked if I could buy a copy of In This Our World, by Charlotte Perkins Stetson. They said they had had some but they were sold. “All sold?” I persisted. Yes, all sold.

  “Then,” said I, still gently, “suppose you pay me for them. I am Mrs. Stetson,” and I showed proof of the same. They were not pleased, but gave me a check. As there were ninety-six copies sold, even at my charge of twenty-five cents there should have been $25.00 total receipts. Wherefore it appears they took out 33 1/3 per cent for the operation of selling. I paid part of my board bill with the check, only to learn later, when far away, that it was not good. Being again in the city I wandered in once more, holding the check, narrated the circumstances, and suggested that they pay cash. They did.

  That little book of verse brought small returns in cash but much in reputation. It was warmly reviewed in certain discerning papers. I remember a particularly appreciative notice in Unity of Chicago, written by Mr. Frederic Saunders, later a lasting friend. Largely owing to that review it has been widely used by Unitarian ministers, and has also been popular with other kinds, much of the work being richly applicable in sermons.

  A strong, liberal-minded woman, Miss Catherine Spence of Scotland, whom I met in San Francisco, took the book home with her, and presently it was brought out in England, printed by a friend of hers, Mr. Maxwell, with T. Fisher Unwin, publisher. This was the first cloth edition, 1895. In England it was taken up with instant recognition by thinking people, with most pleasant consequences, among them this: even before the Unwin edition was out I received an order from the great Chambers Publishing House in Edinburgh, forwarded through the Scribner’s Company in New York, from a Mrs. Dowie in Edinburgh, for “one copy, In This Our World, $.25.”

  This struck me as amusing, the long printed ordersheet crossing ocean and continent, for that one small booklet. I took a copy, corrected some of its many mistakes, put in my name and address with some cordial words, and sent it off, without any bill. In answer I got the kindest letter from Mrs. Dowie, saying she should always value this as “an early first,” and inviting me to visit her if I came to England.

  The second edition, also paper, also the same size but thicker, 184 pages now, was, like the first, brought out by friends in San Francisco, in the office of James Barry, editor of the Star. John Marble, a printer, one of the “comrades,” remarked that he was out of a job and he might as well put in his time setting up my book. Mr. Barry advanced paper and press work, and so In This Our World appeared anew early in 1895, this time selling at fifty cents.

  In Oakland my circumstances did not improve, though there were some good friends who stood by me in spite of the newspapers. Mrs. Sarah McChesney was one of these, well loved. When Jane Addams visited the coast, she was impressed by the work I was doing, and asked: “Why is not Mrs. Stetson better thought of? She seems a very able woman.” “Yes,” they answered, “she is a brainy woman, very, but her views are something dreadful.” “Are they?” said Miss Addams. “What are her views?” No one could say.

  What the creeping slanders were I never knew. There never were any distinct “charges,” never the least hint of anything against my “character,” in the usual line. There I was, with my boarders to bear witness, working my head off, doing what I could for mother and child while I had them, wearing clothes that were given me, writing, lecturing and preaching as opportunity offered. I knew well the ordinary risks of a woman in my position among San Francisco-minded people, and took extreme precautions to give no least handle for criticism in behavior. For instance I made it a point to be seen nowhere with any man, to receive no slightest “attention.” I remember once Edwin Markham, then a school-teacher in Oakland, not yet known as a poet, asked me to take a soda in a drug-store, and I wouldn’t, so absurdly careful was I.

  I left Oakland in debt and failure, and moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1894, beginning again, with a great new hope — the Impress. This was a small paper which had belonged to the P. C. W. P. A. and which I had run for them, successfully, as the Bulletin. It seemed to me, and to Helen Campbell, who was to join forces with me in this enterprise,’ a possible thing to make a good family weekly of this. The P. A. was to retain a double page for its special news. Mrs. C. furnished another department of Household Affairs — she being an expert in those lines, and she brought with her an “adopted son,” Mr. Paul Tyner, used to newspaper work, who was to be manager.

  Mrs. Campbell had been a speaker at our Woman’s Congress, and was my first “adopted mother.” I had delighted in her writings when a child. The three of us took half a small house on the corner of Powell Street, and — Jackson or Sacramento — a cable-car crossing. Its parlor was used as the meeting-room of the Executive Committee of the P. C. W. P. A., and they
had a piano there — concerning which is an amusing tale.

  I was not in the least musical, hardly able to distinguish “Yankee Doodle” from “Old Hundred,” or to sing either. But I was fond of good hymn tunes, such as I had been familiar with in church-going days in Providence. Mrs. Campbell had a Unitarian Hymnbook, and there was the piano. I did not know the notes, or the keys, and had no ear, but I had eyes, fingers, and brains. Pointing to the opening note in some well-loved tune, I asked her to show me where it was on the keyboard. This she did, explaining the sharps and flats also. Following the air alone, I slowly counted along, till I could sound the notes in sequence, using one or two fingers, and soon, to my delight, really playing the air, recognizably.

  Then I essayed to sing it. Touching a note, I made a sound — alas! there was no faintest resemblance. Poor as my ear was I could at least tell a high note from a low one, so I sang the note first too high and then too low — and then gradually herded them in, as it were, till the note I sang and the note on the piano coincided. Great was my delight. In a few months I was not only able to sing some simple tunes correctly, with the piano, but even to carry some of them without it. “Antioch” is my favorite. When preaching, if allowed to select a hymn, I always ask for that one, it is so creditable to Christianity.

  Our little weekly was a clean and handsome paper. Bruce Porter made a beautiful heading for it. Mr. Tyner did the political stuff, theatrical notes, and so on. I wrote articles, verses, editorials, ethical problems — a department, and reviews. We needed stories. I could not write a good story every week, much less buy one. So I instituted a series of “Studies in Style,” producing each week a short story, or a chapter from a long one, in avowed imitation of a well-known author. The readers were to guess the original, and the first correct guesser to receive a copy of one of that author’s books. Sad to relate they never did, the Impress did not live long enough.