It is also the earnest wish of The Forerunner that every American interested in the woman's movement the world over, and its English status in particular, should takeThe Englishwoman.That costs fourteen shillings a year, and is worth it.
And who is to takeThe Forerunner?Only those who like it and find it useful.
Problem 1st. A woman of thirty, single and intending so to remain, owning a tiny cottage in the woods near a large city; exhausted by ten years' overwork and having spent her savings on doctor's bills, asks two questions:
(a) Why cannot she stay at home and enjoy it?
(b) Can one love a man too much? (There was a man, but he went away.)
To (a) the answer is: one cannot live at home, and earn one's living without practicing some domestic industry. Of these two obvious and common ones are:
Take in washing:—not strong enough.
Take in sewing?—How about that?
A large city ought to furnish sewing and mending enough to keep one woman who owns a cottage. Five dollars a week ought to do it, including carfare.
Then comes the more various tasks; to make some one thing excellently well, and sell it: taking orders: making a little business of one's own.
The age of domestic industry is really past; but a lone woman with no rent to pay ought to make good, unless too ill to work at all.
If there is any ground with the cottage she could raise some food perhaps.
Third possibility: take another woman to board: or a child, if competent to care for children.
As to the second question: Yes, one can; one often does. If by "loving" one means "wanting." Love, pure love, strong giving love, does not exhaust nor injure. One can love a lifetime, without return—if it's that kind. But to hopelessly wish for what one cannot have is an illness. If that is the case it is time for a decided change of heart.
The world is full of people to love and serve; and a brave rational attitude of living ought to cure and strengthen.
Sister—sit quiet in the door of the little cottage: say "I am here to serve; to work for the world. I am willing. My own life is desolate—well? So are the lives of many. That I must bear. There are many years before me to be lived through—bravely and lovingly. If I die—that's no hardship; if I live I will do the work I'm here for."
Then study out your case with dispassionate interest;as if it were some one else's; and do what is wise. When you are strong enough, if you are willing to do housework (a job always waiting) for six months, it should give you a clear $150.00, to live another six months without care, and to practice the art you like best. Planahead;bear what you have now in the determined hope of what you like better in five years—ten years—for the rest of life.
And so enlarge your range of consciousness, thinking, talking, reading about big human interests, that your own trouble shrinks in proportion.
Problem 2d. "Several of my professors in the University have such a condescending attitude toward women that most of us girls find it very hard to do our best. In some classes, we are actually, as a sex, marked lower than the men of the class. We have found in every instance that the wives of these professors are of the lowest tabby-cat variety, gossipy, infantile, at times malicious.
Q.(a) Can you believe that these trained men would be as illogical as to judge us all by their wives?
Q.(b) Is there any way even to make a start to root out this idea that all women are cast from the same mold,"—Studiosa.
Ans.(a) "Trained" men are not necessarily logical men. Logic in some fields does not imply logic in all. No matter how logical or how much trained, most men are illogical about women. (As are most women also.)
Ans.(b) Yes. The way to start,—and finish—this idea that "all women are cast from the same mold" is to prove that they are not by being different. The likeness men see in women is the likeness of sex. Show them the difference in human personality.
Problem 3d. "It is almost impossible for married women to go on teaching. Just as I am at my best, my usefulness is nullified because I am married. Would you please outline a plan of organization among married women who wish to continue practicing their profession, thru which they may arouse other women, and also reach the authorities who have control over their work?"—E. M. K.
Ans.The most suitable organization among married women, and single ones as well, whereby to "arouse other women and reach the authorities" is political organization. That question is easily answered—by securing equal suffrage.
Problem 4th. "Several of us girls wish to associate with our men friends as real comrades, paying our half of theatre tickets, suppers and the like, as we have as much money, or as little, as they. They are fine young men, decidedly worth while. Yet they make the most astonishingly stupid objections, as do most of the other girls. It is not 'polite' or 'customary,' it is a man's 'privilege,' etc., etc. Could you not give us suggestions, perhaps in story form, of how to win the young men, and other girls too, without being too sharp-angled, over to our side?"—College Girl.
Ans.I knew of a good arrangement between a man and a woman on this basis. If he invited her, he paid for both. If she invited him, she paid for both. If both went on their several initiatives each paid for him or herself.
As to how to "win over" the most conservative of beings, young men and young women, one can only recommend the trump card in any hand,—a sweet and winning personality;—not "feminine influence," but personal influence. If one's company is much desired, one can dictate terms.
Further; don't be stubborn about it. Ultimate principles are one thing,—personal application are quite another. Vary your attitude according to the degree of intelligence and prejudice you have to deal with.
Problem 5th. "A person is condemned to die for a crime he did not commit. Should he as a good citizen submit peaceably to his own murder (legal) or fight for his life, killing jailors perhaps, till overpowered?"
Ans."As a good citizen" he should submit. See Socrates.
"In answer to question under 'Personal Problems' in June Forerunner,'Why don't people wake up andlive!World size?' Will submit:
Ans.(a) Laziness. If people knew that thirty minutes of a healthful regimen practiced daily would double the daily pleasure of living and add ten years to the span of life, nine out of ten would neglect it. And (b) thoughtlessness through faulty education; the primary function of mental culture being to teach people to think, analyze, and solve the problems of life, and cultivate the memory; but memory is too often given first place to the exclusion of the others."—A. O. H.
This is an excellent answer. There are others.—C. P. G.
To pay its running expenses this little magazine must have about three thousand subscribers. It now has between eleven and twelve hundred.
We want, to make good measure, two thousand more. This is a bare minimum, providing no salary to the editor. If enough people care for the magazine to support it to that extent, the editor will do her work for nothing—and be glad of the chance! If enough people care for it to support her—she will be gladder.
Do you like the magazine, its spirit and purpose? Do you find genuine interest and amusement in the novel—the short story? Do the articles appeal to you? Do the sermons rouse thought and stir to action? Are the problems treated such as you care to study? Does the poetry have bones to it as well as feathers? Does it give you your dollar's worth in the year? And do you want another dollar's worth?
Most of the people who take it like it very much. We are going to print, a few at a time, some of the pleasant praises our readers send. They are so cordial that we are moved to ask all those who do enjoy this little monthly service of sermon and story, fun and fiction, poetry and prose,
First, To renew their subscriptions.
Second, Each to get one new subscriber. (Maybe more!)
Third, To make Christmas presents of subscriptions, or of bound volumes of the first year.
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"Women and Economics" $1.50
Since John Stuart Mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and brilliancy of exposition.—London Chronicle.
A remarkable book. A work on economics that has not a dull page—the work of a woman about women that has not a flippant word.—Boston Transcript.
Will be widely read and discussed as the cleverest, fairest, most forcible presentation of the view of the rapidly increasing group who look with favor on the extension of industrial employment to women.—Political Science Quarterly.
"Concerning Children" $1.25
WANTED:—A philanthropist, to give a copy to every English-speaking parent.—The Times,New York.
Should be read by every mother in the land.—The Press,New York.
Wholesomely disturbing book that deserves to be read for its own sake.—Chicago Dial.
"In This Our World" (Poems) $1.25
There is a joyous superabundance of life, of strength, of health, in Mrs. Gilman's verse, which seems born of the glorious sunshine and rich gardens of California.—Washington Times.
The poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the world.Montaigne would have rejoiced in her.—Mexican Herald.
"The Yellow Wall Paper" $0.50
Worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of Hawthorne andPoe.—Literature.
As a short story it stands among the most powerful produced inAmerica.—Chicago News.
"The Home" $1.00
Indeed, Mrs. Gilman has not intended her book so much as a treatise for scholars as a surgical operation on the popular mind.—The Critic,New York.
It is safe to say that no more stimulating arraignment has ever before taken shape and that the argument of the book is noble, and, on the whole, convincing.—Congregationalist,Boston.
"Human Work" $1.00
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman has been writing a new book, entitled"Human Work." It is the best thing that Mrs. Gilman has done, and it ismeant to focus all of her previous work, so to speak.—Tribune,Chicago.
In her latest volume, "Human Work," Charlotte Perkins Gilman places herself among the foremost students and elucidators of the problem of social economics.—"San Francisco Star._
It is impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the social aspect of human affairs as Mrs. Gilman has outlined it.—Public Opinion.
"What Diantha Did" (A Novel) $1.00
"The Man Made World": or, "Our Androcentric Culture" $1.00
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What is The Forerunner?It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
What is it For?It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.
What is it about?It is about people, principles, and the questions of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.
Is it a Woman's magazine?It will treat all three phases of our existence—male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important citizen.
Is it a Socialist Magazine?It is a magazine for humanity, and humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious humanity is to promote Socialization.
Why is it published?It is published to express ideas which need a special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.
We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser." The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be true.
The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:—
"Our Androcentric Culture."this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.
"What Diantha Did."This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly—as it so often does—among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem—and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)
Among the short articles will appear:
"Private Morality and Public Immorality.""The Beauty Women Have Lost""Our Overworked Instincts.""The Nun in the Kitchen.""Genius: Domestic and Maternal.""A Small God and a Large Goddess.""Animals in Cities.""How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money.""Prize Children""Kitchen-Mindedness""Parlor-Mindedness""Nursery-Mindedness"
There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue. The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette, fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be answered, unless at peril of the asker.
If you take this magazine one year you will have:
One complete novel . . . By C. P. GilmanOne new book . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve short stories . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. GilmanBesides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. GilmanAnd many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman
_____ 19__
Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from _____ 19___ to _____ 19___
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CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMANAUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER
Your Unborn Grandchild is more real then your Buried Grandfather.Let us then Obliterate Graveyards and Build Babygardens.
Marginal mile after mile of smooth-running granite embankment,Washed by clean waters, clean seas and clean rivers embracing;Pier upon pier lying wide for the ships of all seas to foregather,Broad steps of marble, descending, for the people to enter the water,White quays of marble, with music, and myriad pleasure-boats waiting;Music of orchestras playing in blossoming parks by the river,Playing on white-pillared piers where the lightfooted thousands aredancing,Dancing at night in the breeze flowing fresh from the sea and the river;Music of flute and guitar from the lovers afloat on the water,Music of happy young voices far-flying across the bright ripples,Bright with high-glittering ships and the low rosy lanterns of lovers,Bright with the stars overhead and the stars of the city beside them,Their city, the heaven they know, and love as they love one another.
I thought I knew what trouble was when Jimmy went away. It was bad enough when he was clerking in Barstow and I only saw him once a week; but now he'd gone to sea.
He said he'd never earn much as a clerk, and he hated it too. He'd saved every cent he could of his wages and taken a share in the Mary Jenks, and I shouldn't see him again for a year maybe,—maybe more. She was a sealer.
O dear! I'd have married him just as he was; but he said he couldn't keep me yet, and if they had luck he'd make 400 per cent. on his savings that voyage,—and it was all for me. My blessed Jimmy!
He hadn't been gone but a bare fortnight when "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster" on our poor heads. First father broke his arm. There was the doctor to pay, and all that plaster cast thing, and of course I had to do the milking and all the work. I didn't mind that a bit. We hadn't any horse then, to take care of, and Rosy, our cow, was a dear; gentle as a kitten, and sweet-breathed as a baby. But it put back all the farm work, of course; we couldn't hire, and there wasn't enough to go shares on. Mother was pretty wretched, and no wonder.
And then Rosy was stolen! That did seem the last straw. As long asRosy was there and I could milk her, we shouldn't starve.
Poor father! There he sat, with that plaster arm in the sling—the other one looking so discouraged and nerveless, and his head bowed on his breast; the hand hanging, the strong busy fingers laxly open.
"I'll go and look," he said, starting up, "where's my hat?"
"It's no use looking, father," said I, "the halter's gone, there are big footprints beside her hoof-marks out to the road, and then quite a stamped place, and then wagon wheels and her nice little clean tracks going off after the wagon. Plain stolen."
He sat down again and groaned.
"Thought I heard a wagon in the middle of the night," said mother, weakly. Her face was flushed, and her eyes ran over. "I can't sleep much you know. I ought to have spoken, but you need your sleep."
I ran to her and kissed her.
"Now mother dear! Don't you fret over it,—please don't! We'll findRosy. I'll get Mrs. Clark to 'phone for me at once."
"'Phone where?" said father. "It's no use 'phoning. Its those gypsies. And they got to town hours ago—and Rosy's beef by this time." He set his jaw hard; but there were tears in his eyes, too.
I was nearly distracted myself. "If only Jimmy were here," I said, "he'd find her!"
"I don't doubt he'd make a try," said father, "but it's too late."
I ran over to Mrs. Clark, and we 'phoned to the police in Barstow, and sure enough they found the hide and horns! It didn't do us any good. They arrested some gypsies, but couldn't prove anything; shut one of 'em up for vagrancy, too,—but that didn't do us any good, either. And if they'd proved it and convicted him it wouldn't have brought back Rosy,—or given us another cow.
Then mother got sick. It was pure discouragement as much as anything, I think, and she missed Rosy's milk,—she used to half live on it. After she was sick she missed it more, there were so few things she could eat,—and not many of those I could get for her.
O how I did miss Jimmy! If he'd been there he'd have helped me tosee overit all. "Sho!" he'd have said. "It's hard lines, little girl, now; but bless you, a broken arm's only temporary; your father'll be as good as ever soon. And your mother'll get well; she's a strong woman. I never saw a stronger woman of her age. And as to the food—just claim you're 'no breakfast' people, and believe in fasting for your health!"
That's the way Jimmy met things, and I tried to say it all to myself, and keep my spirits up,—and theirs. But Jimmy was at sea.
Well, father couldn't work, it had to be his right arm, of course. And mother couldn't work either; she was just helpless and miserable, and the more she worried the sicker she got, and the sicker she got the more she worried. My patience! How I did work! No time to read, no time to study, no time to sew on any of the pretty white things I was gradually accumulating. I got up before daylight, almost; kept the house as neat as I could, and got breakfast, such as it was. Father could dress himself after a fashion, and he could sit with mother when I was outside working in the garden. I began that garden just as an experiment, the day after father broke his arm. The outlay was only thirty cents for lettuce and radish seed, but it took a lot of work.
Then there was mother to do for, and father to cheer up (which was hardest of all), and dinner and supper to get,—and nothing to get them with, practically.
The doctor didn't push us any, but father hates a debt as he hates poison, and mother is a natural worrier. "She is killing herself with worry," the doctor said; and he had no anti-toxin for that, apparently.
And then, as if that wasn't enough, that Mr. Robert Grey Sr. took advantage of our misfortunes and began to make up to me again.
I never liked the old man since I was a little girl. He was always picking me up and kissing me, when I didn't want to in the least. When I got older he'd pinch my checks, and offer me a nickle if I'd kiss him.
Mother liked him, for he stood high in the church, and was a charitable soul. Father liked him because he was successful—father always admired successful men;—and Mr. Grey got his money honestly, too, father said. He was a kind old soul. He offered to send me to college, and I was awfully tempted; but father couldn't bear a money obligation,—and I couldn't bear Mr. Grey.
There was a Robert Grey Jr., who was disagreeable enough; a thin, pimply, sanctimonious young fellow, with a class of girls in sunday-school. He was sickly enough, but Mr. Robert Grey Sr. was worse. He sort of tottered and threw his feet about as he walked; and kind or not kind, I couldn't bear him. But he came around now all the time.
He brought mother nice things to eat,—you can't refuse gifts to the sick,—and they were awfully nice; he has a first class cook. And he brought so much that there was enough for father too. We had to eat it to save it, you see,—but I hated every mouthful. I lived on our potatoes mostly, and they were poor enough—in June—and no milk to go with them.
He came every day, bringing his basket of delicacies for mother, and he'd chat awhile with her—she liked it; and he'd sit and talk with father—he liked it; and then he'd hang around me—and I had to be civil to him! But I did not like it a bit. I couldn't bear the old man with his thin grey whiskers, and his watery gray eyes, and his big pink mouth—color of an old hollyhock.
But he came and came, and nobody could fail to see what he wanted; but O dear me! How I wished for Jimmy. My big, strong, brisk boy, with the jolly laugh and the funny little swears that he invented himself! I watched the shipping news, and waited and hoped; he might come back any time now, if they'd had luck. But he didn't come. Mr. Robert Grey Sr. was there every day—and Jimmy didn't come.
I tried not to cry. I needed all my strength and courage to keep some heart in father and mother, and I tried always to remember what Jimmy would have said; how he'd have faced it. "Don't be phazed byanything," he used to say. "Everything goes by—give it time. Don't holler! Don't give a jam!" (People always looked so surprised when Jimmy said "Jam!") "Just hang on and do the square thing. You're not responsible for other people's sorrows. Hold up your own end."
Jimmy was splendid! He used to read to me about an old philosopher called Euripides, and I got to appreciate him too. But when the papers were full of "Storms at sea"—"Terrible weather in the north"—"Gales"—"High winds"—"Losses in shipping"—it did seem as if I couldn't bear it.
Then at last it came, in a terrible list of wrecks. The MaryJenks—lost, with all on board.
O what was the use of living! What did anything matter! Why couldn't I die! Why couldn't I die!
But I didn't. My health was as good as ever; I could even sleep—when I wasn't crying. Working hard out of doors and not eating very much makes you sleep I guess, heart or no heart. And I had to keep on working; my lettuce was up and coming on finely, rows upon rows of it, just as I had planted it, two days apart. And the radishes too, they were eatable, and we tried them.
But father laughed grimly at my small garden. "A lot of good that'll do us, child!" he said. "O Jenny—there's more than that you can do for your poor mother! I know you feel badly, and ordinarily I wouldn't say a word, but—you see how it is."
I saw how it was well enough, but it seemed to me too horrible to think of. To thrust that tottering old philanthropist right into my poor bleeding heart! I couldn't bear it.
Mother never said a word. But she looked. She'd lie there with her big hollow eyes following me around the room; and when I came to do anything for her she'd look in my face so! It was more effective than all father's talks. For father had made up his mind now, and urged me all the time.
"We might as well face the facts, Jenny," he said. "James Young is gone, and I'm sorry; and you are naturally broken-hearted. But even if you were a widow I'd say the same thing. Here is this man who has been good to you since you were a child; he will treat you well, you'll have a home, you'll be provided for when he dies. I know you're not in love with him. I don't expect it. He don't either. He has spoken to me. He don't expect miracles. Here we are, absolutely living on his food! It—it isterribleto me, Jennie! But I couldn't refuse, for your mother's sake. Now if I could pocket my pride for her sake, can't you pocket your grief? You can't bring back the dead."
"O father, don't!" I said. "How can you talk so! O Jimmy! Jimmy!—If you were here!"
"He isn't here—he never will be!" said father steadily. "But your mother is here, and sick. Mr. Grey wants to send her to a sanitarium—'as a friend.' I can't let him do that,—it would cost hundreds of dollars. But—as a son-in-law I could."
Mother didn't say a thing—dear mother. But she looked at me.
They made me feel like a brute, between them; at least father did. He kept right on talking.
"Mr. Grey is a good man," he said, "an unusually good man. If he was a bad man I'd never say a word."
"He was when he was young, old Miss Green says," I answered.
"I am ashamed of you, Jennie," said father, "to listen to such scandalous gossip! How—how unmaidenly of you! I dare say he was a little wild,—forty years ago. Most young fellows are, and he was rich and handsome. But he has been a shining light in this community for forty years.—A good husband—a good father."
"What'd his wife die of?" I asked suddenly.
"An operation,—but he did everything for her. She had the best doctors and nurses. She was a good deal of an invalid, I believe, after Robert Jr. was born."
"He's not much!" said I.
"No, Robert Jr. has been a great disappointment to his father—the great disappointment of his life, I may say; though he was very fond of his wife. But he won't trouble you any, Jenny; his father is going to send him to Europe for a long time—for his health. Now Jenny, all this is ancient history. Here is a good kind man who loves you dearly, and wants to marry you at once. If you do it you may save your mother's life,—and set me on my feet again for what remains of mine. I never said a word while you were engaged to Jimmy Young, but now it's a plain duty."
That night Mr. Grey Sr. came as usual. He had sent round his car and got mother to take a ride that afternoon. It did her good, too. And when he came father went out and sat with her, and left me to him:—and he asked me to marry him.
He told me all the things he'd do for me—for mother—for father. He said he shouldn't live very long anyway, and then I could be my own mistress, with plenty of money. And I couldn't say a word, yes or no.
I sat there, playing with the edge of the lamp-mat—and thinking ofJimmy.
And then Mr. Robert Grey Sr. made a mistake. He got a hold of my hand and fingered it. He came and took me in his arms—and kissed my mouth.
I jerked away from him—he almost fell over. "No! O NO!" I cried. "I can't do it Mr. Grey. I simplycan't!"
He turned the color of ashes.
"Why not?" he said.
"Because it isn't decent," said I firmly. "I can't bear to have you touch me—never could. I will be a servant to you—I will work for you—nurse you—but to be your wife!—I'm sorry Mr. Grey, but I can't do it."
I ran upstairs, and cried and cried; and I had reason to cry, for father was a living thundercloud after that, and mother was worse; and they wouldn't take any more of Mr. Grey's kindnesses, either of them.
My lettuce and radishes kept us alive until the potatoes were ripe. I sold them, fresh every day. Walked three miles with a big basket full every morning, to one of the summer hotels. It was awfully heavy, especially when it rained. They didn't pay much, but it kept us—a dollar a day, sometimes more.
Father got better in course of time, of course, and went to work on the farm in a discouraged sort of way. But mother was worse, if anything. She never blamed me—never said a word; but her eyes were a living reproach.
"Mother, dear," I begged her, "do forgive me! I'll work till I drop, for you; I'll deny myself everything: I'll do most anything that's decent and honest. But to marry a man you don't love is not honest; and to marry an old invalid like that—it's not decent."
She just sighed—didn't say anything.
"Cheer up mother, do! Father's almost well; we can get through this year somehow. Next year I can make enough to buy a cow, really."
But it wasn't more than a month from that time, I was sitting on the door stone at twilight—thinking of Jimmy, of course—and—therewasJimmy. I thought it was his ghost; but if it was it was a very warm-blooded one.
As to old Mr. Robert Grey, Sr., he persuaded little Grace Salters to marry him; a pretty, foolish, plump little thing; and if you'll believe it, she died within a year—she and her baby with her.
Well. If ever anybody was glad I was.
I don't mean glad she was dead, poor girl; but glad I didn't marry him, and did marry Jimmy.
"Making a virtue of necessity" we say, somewhat scornfully; and never consider that all virtues are so made.
"The savage virtues" of endurance, patience, gratitude, hospitality, are easily seen to be precisely the main necessities of savages. Their daily hardships and occasional miseries were such that an extra store of endurance was needed, and this they artificially cultivated by the system of initiation by torture.
The Spartans used the same plan, training the young soldier to bear a doubly heavy spear, that the real one might be light to his hand.
Patience was needed by the hunter, and still more by the laboring squaw; gratitude sprang from the great need—and rarity—of mercy or service; and hospitality is always found in proportion to the distance, difficulty, and danger of traveling. Courage, as the preeminent virtue of manhood, rose to this prominence later in history, under conditions of constant warfare.
Where you have to meet danger, and your danger is best overcome by courage, by that necessity courage becomes a virtue. It has not been deemed a virtue in women, because it was not a necessity. They were not allowed to face outer danger; and what dangers they had were best escaped by avoidance and ingenuity. Amusingly enough, since the woman's main danger came through her "natural protector"—man; and since her skill and success in escaping from or overcoming him was naturally not valued by him, much less considered a necessity; this power of evasion and adaptation in woman has never been called a virtue. Yet it is just as serviceable to her as courage to the man, and therefore as much a virtue.
Honesty is a modern virtue. It existed, without a name and without praise, among savages; but its place among virtues comes with the period of commercial life. Without some honesty, no commerce; it is absolutely necessary to keep the world going; its absence in any degree is a social injury; therefore we extol honesty and seek to punish dishonesty, as the savage never thought of doing.
All men are not honest in this commercial period, nor were all men brave in the period of warfare: but they all agree in praising the virtue most needed at the time.
Truth, as a special virtue, is interesting to study. The feeling of trust in the word of another is of great value, under some conditions. Under what conditions? In slavery? No. Truthfulness is evidently not advantageous to slaves, for they do not manifest, or even esteem that quality.
Those same Spartans, to whom courage and endurance stood so high, thought but little of truth and honesty, and taught their boys to steal. In warfare trickery and robbery are part of the game.
Where do we find the "word of honour" most valued? Among gentlefolk and nobles, and those who inherit their traditions and impulses. It is conditioned upon freedom and power. You must trust a man's word—when you have no other hold upon him!
Mercy, kindness, "humanity"—as we quite justifiably call it,—is a very young virtue, growing with social growth. Cruelty was once the rule; now the exception. The more inextricably our lives are interwoven in the social fabric, the more we need the mutual love which is the natural state of social beings; and this feeling becoming a necessity, it also becomes a virtue. Similarly, as our lives depend on the presence and service of other animals we need to be kind to them; and in our highest development so far, kindness to animals has been elected virtue.
But of all virtues made of necessity, none is more glaringly in evidence than the one we call "virtue" itself,—chastity. We call it "virtue" because it isthequality—and the only quality—which has been a necessity to the possessor—woman. Her life depended absolutely on man. He valued her in one relation, and in that relation demanded this one thing;—that she serve him alone.
Because of this demand, to her an absolute necessity, we have developed the virtue of chastity, and praised it above all others—in woman! But in men it was not even considered a virtue, much less demanded and enforced.
Could anything be clearer proof that virtue was made of necessity?
What we need to study now is the chief necessity of modern life. When we have found that out we shall be able to rearrange our scale of virtues.
A city is a group residence for human beings. There is no room in it for any animal but one—Genus Homo.At present we make a sort of menagerie of it.
Genus Homo is the major factor, bus he shares his common home with many other beasts,genus equus,genus canis,genus felis,and members of others whose Latin names are not so familiar.
The horse is most numerous. He is a clean animal, a good friend and strong servant where animals belong—in the country. In the city he is an enemy. His stable is a Depot for the Wholesale Distribution of Diseases.
The services of the horse, and the tons upon tons of fertilizing material produced by him, are financially valuable; but the injury from many deaths, the yearly drain from long sickness, and all the doctors and druggists bills, amounts to a far greater loss.
There is no horse work in a city that cannot be done by machine. The carriage, wagon, truck and dray, can take his place as workers; and theybreed no flies.
We are learning, learning fast, how large a proportion of diseases spring from minute living things which get inside of us and play havoc with our organism. And very lately we are learning further, that of all the benevolent distributors of disease none are more swift and sure than certain insects; insects which are born and bred in and upon the bodies and excreta of animals.
It is true that our kitchen garbage furnishes another popular nursery for flies, but the unclean stable is the other breeding place.
Next in number to the horse come the dog and cat. These creatures are not healthy and not happy in a city. They cannot be kept there without injury to them; and the injury is more than revenged upon their keepers. The dog furnishes his quota of deaths from hydrophobia, as well as plain "assault and battery;" he defiles our sidewalks, and the fruits and vegetables exposed upon our sidewalks; he keeps us awake by his forlorn howling; he has diseases of his own which we may receive from him; and he has fleas.
The flea, as well as the fly, is a valiant and industrious purveyor of disease. From beast to beast they hop, carrying their toxic germs with them: and the dog, displeased with his persecutors, scratches them off upon our carpets.
The same applies to cats. A cat in the country is clean and safe; a cat in the city is neither—if it has any freedom. If a young kitten, cleansed and flealess, were reared in a lofty apartment, it would be clean, doubtless; but the usual cat is free on intersecting fences; and in the contact of warfare, or of gentler feelings, the flea is free to travel and exchange.
The rat and mouse come under the same condemnation; they have fleas. They make dirt. They tend to increase and maintain our insect pests and terrors. They penetrate to all unsavory places. They acquire disease themselves, or carry the germs of it in their blood or on their fur. Their parasites gather them up and give them to us. The rats will leave a sinking ship, the fleas will leave a sinking rat, and among their millions some of them come to us.
When we build cities clean and tight from basement to roof,—all concrete, brick, stone, metal, and plaster; when the holes for pipes of all sorts are scaled as they enter the home; when the kitchen is eliminated by 90 per cent. and replaced by the food laboratories; when no animal but man is allowed within city limits—and he is taught to keep clean; we can then compare, for antiseptic cleanliness with a fine hospital—and have few hospitals to compare with!
Your car is too big for one person to stir—Your chauffeur is a little man, too;Yet he lifts that machine, does the little chauffeur,By the power of a gentle jackscrew.
Diantha worked.
For all her employees she demanded a ten-hour day, she worked fourteen; rising at six and not getting to bed till eleven, when her charges were all safely in their rooms for the night.
They were all up at five-thirty or thereabouts, breakfasting at six, and the girls off in time to reach their various places by seven. Their day was from 7 A. M. to 8.30 P. M., with half an hour out, from 11.30 to twelve, for their lunch; and three hours, between 2.20 and 5.30, for their own time, including their tea. Then they worked again from 5.30 to 8.30, on the dinner and the dishes, and then they came home to a pleasant nine o'clock supper, and had all hour to dance or rest before the 10.30 bell for bed time.
Special friends and "cousins" often came home with them, and frequently shared the supper—for a quarter—and the dance for nothing.
It was no light matter in the first place to keep twenty girls contented with such a regime, and working with the steady excellence required, and in the second place to keep twenty employers contented with them. There were failures on both sides; half a dozen families gave up the plan, and it took time to replace them; and three girls had to be asked to resign before the year was over. But most of them had been in training in the summer, and had listened for months to Diantha's earnest talks to the clubs, with good results.
"Remember we are not doing this for ourselves alone," she would say to them. "Our experiment is going to make this kind of work easier for all home workers everywhere. You may not like it at first, but neither did you like the old way. It will grow easier as we get used to it; and wemustkeep the rules, because we made them!"
She laboriously composed a neat little circular, distributed it widely, and kept a pile in her lunch room for people to take.
It read thus:
UNION HOUSEFood and Service.
General Housework by the week . . . $10.00General Housework by the day . . . $2.00Ten hours work a day, and furnish their own food.Additional labor by the hour . . . $ .20Special service for entertainments, maids and waitresses, by the hour .. . $ .25Catering for entertainments.Delicacies for invalids.Lunches packed and delivered.Caffeteria . . . 12 to 2
What annoyed the young manager most was the uncertainty and irregularity involved in her work, the facts varying considerably from her calculations.
In the house all ran smoothly. Solemn Mrs. Thorvald did the laundry work for thirty-five—by the aid of her husband and a big mangle for the "flat work." The girls' washing was limited. "You have to be reasonable about it," Diantha had explained to them. "Your fifty cents covers a dozen pieces—no more. If you want more you have to pay more, just as your employers do for your extra time."
This last often happened. No one on the face of it could ask more than ten hours of the swift, steady work given by the girls at but a fraction over 14 cents an hour. Yet many times the housekeeper was anxious for more labor on special days; and the girls, unaccustomed to the three free hours in the afternoon, were quite willing to furnish it, thus adding somewhat to their cash returns.
They had a dressmaking class at the club afternoons, and as Union House boasted a good sewing machine, many of them spent the free hours in enlarging their wardrobes. Some amused themselves with light reading, a few studied, others met and walked outside. The sense of honest leisure grew upon them, with its broadening influence; and among her thirty Diantha found four or five who were able and ambitious, and willing to work heartily for the further development of the business.
Her two housemaids were specially selected. When the girls were out of the house these two maids washed the breakfast dishes with marvelous speed, and then helped Diantha prepare for the lunch. This was a large undertaking, and all three of them, as well as Julianna and Hector worked at it until some six or eight hundred sandwiches were ready, and two or three hundred little cakes.
Diantha had her own lunch, and then sat at the receipt of custom during the lunch hour, making change and ordering fresh supplies as fast as needed.
The two housemaids had a long day, but so arranged that it made but ten hours work, and they had much available time of their own. They had to be at work at 5:30 to set the table for six o'clock breakfast, and then they were at it steadily, with the dining rooms to "do," and the lunch to get ready, until 11:30, when they had an hour to eat and rest. From 12:30 to 4 o'clock they were busy with the lunch cups, the bed-rooms, and setting the table for dinner; but after that they had four hours to themselves, until the nine o'clock supper was over, and once more they washed dishes for half an hour. The caffeteria used only cups and spoons; the sandwiches and cakes were served on paper plates.
In the hand-cart methods of small housekeeping it is impossible to exact the swift precision of such work, but not in the standardized tasks and regular hours of such an establishment as this.
Diantha religiously kept her hour at noon, and tried to keep the three in the afternoon; but the employer and manager cannot take irresponsible rest as can the employee. She felt like a most inexperienced captain on a totally new species of ship, and her paper plans looked very weak sometimes, as bills turned out to be larger than she had allowed for, or her patronage unaccountably dwindled. But if the difficulties were great, the girl's courage was greater. "It is simply a big piece of work," she assured herself, "and may be a long one, but there never was anything better worth doing. Every new business has difficulties, I mustn't think of them. I must just push and push and push—a little more every day."
And then she would draw on all her powers to reason with, laugh at, and persuade some dissatisfied girl; or, hardest of all, to bring in a new one to fill a vacancy.
She enjoyed the details of her lunch business, and studied it carefully; planning for a restaurant a little later. Her bread was baked in long cylindrical closed pans, and cut by machinery into thin even slices, not a crust wasted; for they were ground into crumbs and used in the cooking.
The filling for her sandwiches was made from fish, flesh, and fowl; from cheese and jelly and fruit and vegetables; and so named or numbered that the general favorites were gradually determined.
Mr. Thaddler chatted with her over the counter, as far as she would allow it, and discoursed more fully with his friends on the verandah.
"Porne," he said, "where'd that girl come from anyway? She's a genius, that's what she is; a regular genius."
"She's all that," said Mr. Porne, "and a benefactor to humanity thrown in. I wish she'd start her food delivery, though. I'm tired of those two Swedes already. O—come from? Up in Jopalez, Inca County, I believe."
"New England stock I bet," said Mr. Thaddler. "Its a damn shame the way the women go on about her."
"Not all of them, surely," protested Mr. Porne.
"No, not all of 'em,—but enough of 'em to make mischief, you may be sure. Women are the devil, sometimes."
Mr. Porne smiled without answer, and Mr. Thaddler went sulking away—a bag of cakes bulging in his pocket.
The little wooden hotel in Jopalez boasted an extra visitor a few days later. A big red faced man, who strolled about among the tradesmen, tried the barber's shop, loafed in the post office, hired a rig and traversed the length and breadth of the town, and who called on Mrs. Warden, talking real estate with her most politely in spite of her protestation and the scornful looks of the four daughters; who bought tobacco and matches in the grocery store, and sat on the piazza thereof to smoke, as did other gentlemen of leisure.
Ross Warden occasionally leaned at the door jamb, with folded arms. He never could learn to be easily sociable with ranchmen and teamsters. Serve them he must, but chat with them he need not. The stout gentleman essayed some conversation, but did not get far. Ross was polite, but far from encouraging, and presently went home to supper, leaving a carrot-haired boy to wait upon his lingering customers.
"Nice young feller enough," said the stout gentleman to himself, "but raised on ramrods. Never got 'em from those women folks of his, either. Hehasa row to hoe!" And he departed as he had come.
Mr. Eltwood turned out an unexpectedly useful friend to Diantha. He steered club meetings and "sociables" into her large rooms, and as people found how cheap and easy it was to give parties that way, they continued the habit. He brought his doctor friends to sample the lunch, and they tested the value of Diantha's invalid cookery, and were more than pleased.
Hungry tourists were wholly without prejudice, and prized her lunches for their own sake. They descended upon the caffeteria in chattering swarms, some days, robbing the regular patrons of their food, and sent sudden orders for picnic lunches that broke in upon the routine hours of the place unmercifully.
But of all her patrons, the families of invalids appreciated Diantha's work the most. Where a little shack or tent was all they could afford to live in, or where the tiny cottage was more than filled with the patient, attending relative, and nurse, this depot of supplies was a relief indeed.
A girl could be had for an hour or two; or two girls, together, with amazing speed, could put a small house in dainty order while the sick man lay in his hammock under the pepper trees; and be gone before he was fretting for his bed again. They lived upon her lunches; and from them, and other quarters, rose an increasing demand for regular cooked food.
"Why don't you go into it at once?" urged Mrs. Weatherstone.
"I want to establish the day service first," said Diantha. "It is a pretty big business I find, and I do get tired sometimes. I can't afford to slip up, you know. I mean to take it up next fall, though."
"All right. And look here; see that you begin in first rate shape.I've got some ideas of my own about those food containers."
They discussed the matter more than once, Diantha most reluctant to take any assistance; Mrs. Weatherstone determined that she should.
"I feel like a big investor already," she said. "I don't think even you realize themoneythere is in this thing! You are interested in establishing the working girls, and saving money and time for the housewives. I am interested in making money out of it—honestly! It would be such a triumph!"
"You're very good—" Diantha hesitated.
"I'm not good. I'm most eagerly and selfishly interested. I've taken a new lease of life since knowing you, Diantha Bell! You see my father was a business man, and his father before him—Ilike it.There I was, with lots of money, and not an interest in life! Now?—why, there's no end to this thing, Diantha! It's one of the biggest businesses on earth—if notthebiggest!"
"Yes—I know," the girl answered. "But its slow work. I feel the weight of it more than I expected. There's every reason to succeed, but there's the combined sentiment of the whole world to lift—it's as heavy as lead."
"Heavy! Of course it's heavy! The more fun to lift it! You'll do it, Diantha, I know you will, with that steady, relentless push of yours. But the cooked food is going to be your biggest power, and you must let me start it right. Now you listen to me, and make Mrs. Thaddler eat her words!"
Mrs. Thaddler's words would have proved rather poisonous, if eaten. She grew more antagonistic as the year advanced. Every fault that could be found in the undertaking she pounced upon and enlarged; every doubt that could be cast upon it she heavily piled up; and her opposition grew more rancorous as Mr. Thaddler enlarged in her hearing upon the excellence of Diantha's lunches and the wonders of her management.
"She's picked a bunch o' winners in those girls of hers," he declared to his friends. "They set out in the morning looking like a flock of sweet peas—in their pinks and whites and greens and vi'lets,—and do more work in an hour than the average slavey can do in three, I'm told."
It was a pretty sight to see those girls start out. They had a sort of uniform, as far as a neat gingham dress went, with elbow sleeves, white ruffled, and a Dutch collar; a sort of cross between a nurses dress and that of "La Chocolataire;" but colors were left to taste. Each carried her apron and a cap that covered the hair while cooking and sweeping; but nothing that suggested the black and white livery of the regulation servant.
"This is a new stage of labor," their leader reminded them. "You are not servants—you are employees. You wear a cap as an English carpenter does—or a French cook,—and an apron because your work needs it. It is not a ruffled label,—it's a business necessity. And each one of us must do our best to make this new kind of work valued and respected."
It is no easy matter to overcome prejudices many centuries old, and meet the criticism of women who have nothing to do but criticize. Those who were "mistresses," and wanted "servants,"—someone to do their will at any moment from early morning till late evening,—were not pleased with the new way if they tried it; but the women who had interests of their own to attend to; who merely wanted their homes kept clean, and the food well cooked and served, were pleased. The speed, the accuracy, the economy; the pleasant, quiet, assured manner of these skilled employees was a very different thing from the old slipshod methods of the ordinary general servant.
So the work slowly prospered, while Diantha began to put in execution the new plan she had been forced into.
While it matured, Mrs. Thaddler matured hers. With steady dropping she had let fall far and wide her suspicions as to the character of Union House.
"It looks pretty queer to me!" she would say, confidentially, "All those girls together, and no person to have any authority over them! Not a married woman in the house but that washerwoman,—and her husband's a fool!"
"And again; You don't see how she does it? Neither do I! The expenses must be tremendous—those girls pay next to nothing,—and all that broth and brown bread flying about town! Pretty queer doings, I think!"
"The men seem to like that caffeteria, don't they?" urged one caller, perhaps not unwilling to nestle Mrs. Thaddler, who flushed darkly as she replied. "Yes, they do. Men usually like that sort of place."
"They like good food at low prices, if that's what you mean," her visitor answered.
"That's not all I mean—by a long way," said Mrs. Thaddler. She said so much, and said it so ingeniously, that a dark rumor arose from nowhere, and grew rapidly. Several families discharged their Union House girls. Several girls complained that they were insultingly spoken to on the street. Even the lunch patronage began to fall off.
Diantha was puzzled—a little alarmed. Her slow, steady lifting of the prejudice against her was checked. She could not put her finger on the enemy, yet felt one distinctly, and had her own suspicions. But she also had her new move well arranged by this time.
Then a maliciously insinuating story of the place came out in a San Francisco paper, and a flock of local reporters buzzed in to sample the victim. They helped themselves to the luncheon, and liked it. but that did not soften their pens. They talked with such of the girls as they could get in touch with, and wrote such versions of these talks as suited them.
They called repeatedly at Union House, but Diantha refused to see them. Finally she was visited by the Episcopalian clergyman. He had heard her talk at the Club, was favorably impressed by the girl herself, and honestly distressed by the dark stories he now heard about Union House.
"My dear young lady," he said, "I have called to see you in your own interests. I do not, as you perhaps know, approve of your schemes. I consider them—ah—subversive of the best interests of the home! But I think you mean well, though mistakenly. Now I fear you are not aware that this-ah—ill-considered undertaking of yours, is giving rise to considerable adverse comment in the community. There is—ah—there is a great deal being said about this business of yours which I am sure you would regret if you knew it. Do you think it is wise; do you think it is—ah—right, my dear Miss Bell, to attempt to carry on a—a place of this sort, without the presence of a—of a Matron of assured standing?"
Diantha smiled rather coldly.
"May I trouble you to step into the back parlor, Dr. Aberthwaite," she said; and then;
"May I have the pleasure of presenting to you Mrs. Henderson Bell—my mother?"
*
"Wasn't it great!" said Mrs. Weatherstone; "I was there you see,— I'd come to call on Mrs. Bell—she's a dear,—and in came Mrs. Thaddler—"
"Mrs. Thaddler?"
"O I know it was old Aberthwaite, but he represented Mrs. Thaddler and her clique, and had come there to preach to Diantha about propriety—I heard him,—and she brought him in and very politely introduced him to her mother!—it was rich, Isabel."
"How did Diantha manage it?" asked her friend.
"She's been trying to arrange it for ever so long. Of course her father objected—you'd know that. But there's a sister—not a bad sort, only very limited; she's taken the old man to board, as it were, and I guess the mother really set her foot down for once—said she had a right to visit her own daughter!"
"It would seem so," Mrs. Porne agreed. "Iamso glad! It will be so much easier for that brave little woman now."
It was.
Diantha held her mother in her arms the night she came, and cried tike a baby.
"O motherdear!" she sobbed, "I'd no idea I should miss you so much.O you blessed comfort!"
Her mother cried a bit too; she enjoyed this daughter more than either of her older children, and missed her more. A mother loves all her children, naturally; but a mother is also a person—and may, without sin, have personal preferences.
She took hold of Diantha's tangled mass of papers with the eagerness of a questing hound.
"You've got all the bills, of course," she demanded, with her anxious rising inflection.
"Every one," said the girl. "You taught me that much. What puzzles me is to make things balance. I'm making more than I thought in some lines, and less in others, and I can't make it come out straight."
"It won't, altogether, till the end of the year I dare say," said Mrs. Bell, "but let's get clear as far as we can. In the first place we must separate your business,—see how much each one pays."
"The first one I want to establish," said her daughter, "is the girl's club. Not just this one, with me to run it. But to show that any group of twenty or thirty girls could do this thing in any city. Of course where rents and provisions were high they'd have to charge more. I want to make an average showing somehow. Now can you disentangle the girl part front the lunch part and the food part, mother dear, and make it all straight?"
Mrs. Bell could and did; it gave her absolute delight to do it. She set down the total of Diantha's expenses so far in the Service Department, as follows:
Rent of Union House . . . $1,500Rent of furniture . . . $300One payment on furniture . . . $400Fuel and lights, etc. . . . $352Service of 5 at $10 a week each . . . $2,600Food for thirty-seven . . . $3,848——-Total . . . $9,000
"That covers everything but my board," said Mrs. Bell.
"Now your income is easy—35 x $4.50 equals $8,190. Take that from your $9,000 and you are $810 behind."
"Yes, I know," said Diantha, eagerly, "but if it was merely a girl's club home, the rent and fixtures would be much less. A home could be built, with thirty bedrooms—and all necessary conveniences—for $7,000. I've asked Mr. and Mrs. Porne about it; and the furnishing needn't cost over $2,000 if it was very plain. Ten per cent. of that is a rent of $900 you see."
"I see," said her mother. "Better say a thousand. I guess it could be done for that."
So they set down rent, $1,000.
"There have to be five paid helpers in the house," Diantha went on, "the cook, the laundress, the two maids, and the matron. She must buy and manage. She could be one of their mothers or aunts."
Mrs. Bell smiled. "Do you really imagine, Diantha, that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy or Mrs. Yon Yonson can manage a house like this as you can?"
Diantha flushed a little. "No, mother, of course not. But I am keeping very full reports of all the work. Just the schedule of labor—the hours—the exact things done. One laundress, with machinery, can wash for thirty-five, (its only six a day you see), and the amount is regulated; about six dozen a day, and all the flat work mangled.
"In a Girl's Club alone the cook has all day off, as it were; she can do the down stairs cleaning. And the two maids have only table service and bedrooms."
"Thirty-five bedrooms?"
"Yes. But two girls together, who know how, can do a room in 8 minutes—easily. They are small and simple you see. Make the bed, shake the mats, wipe the floors and windows,—you watch them!"
"I have watched them," the mother admitted. "They are as quick as—as mill-workers!"
"Well," pursued Diantha, "they spend three hours on dishes and tables, and seven on cleaning. The bedrooms take 280 minutes; that's nearly five hours. The other two are for the bath rooms, halls, stairs, downstairs windows, and so on. That's all right. Then I'm keeping the menus—just what I furnish and what it costs. Anybody could order and manage when it was all set down for her. And you see—as you have figured it—they'd have over $500 leeway to buy the furniture if they were allowed to."
"Yes," Mrs. Bell admitted, "ifthe rent was what you allow, andifthey all work all the time!"
"That's the hitch, of course. But mother; the girls who don't have steady jobs do work by the hour, and that brings in more, on the whole. If they are the right kind they can make good. If they find anyone who don't keep her job—for good reasons—they can drop her."
"M'm!" said Mrs. Bell. "Well, it's an interesting experiment. But how about you? So far you are $410 behind."
"Yes, because my rent's so big. But I cover that by letting the rooms, you see."
Mrs. Bell considered the orders of this sort. "So far it averages about $25.00 a week; that's doing well."
"It will be less in summer—much less," Diantha suggested. "Suppose you call it an average of $15.00."
"Call it $10.00," said her mother ruthlessly. "At that it covers your deficit and $110 over."
"Which isn't much to live on," Diantha agreed, "but then comes my special catering, and the lunches."
Here they were quite at sea for a while. But as the months passed, and the work steadily grew on their hands, Mrs. Bell became more and more cheerful. She was up with the earliest, took entire charge of the financial part of the concern, and at last Diantha was able to rest fully in her afternoon hours. What delighted her most was to see her mother thrive in the work. Her thin shoulders lifted a little as small dragging tasks were forgotten and a large growing business substituted. Her eyes grew bright again, she held her head as she did in her keen girlhood, and her daughter felt fresh hope and power as she saw already the benefit of the new method as affecting her nearest and dearest.