Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Perhaps it is just as well, for most children seem to have so little sense. Sometimes I feel as if I would like to start a Revolution among children, but then when I see how foolish they are, it is discouraging.

  For instance, every child has to suffer from the clothes put on him or her. The more loving and careful parents are, the more underflannels and overcoats and rubbers and things they pile onto the children. Such thick cloth, too!

  Why, you’ll see poor, fat, toddling things in coats of stiff, heavy stuff, thicker than their fingers; so still and heavy that the poor child cannot bend her or his arms. How would a grown person like to wear a coat stiffer and thicker than a doormat, so that they stood there in a barrel, a hot woolly barrel, with arms that wouldn’t shut? The parents pile on what they see fit, and the children have to put up with it.

  I didn’t.

  If they put on more clothes than I wanted, I practised passive resistance — simply sat down and stayed there.

  “Please take it off!” I said. “Please take it off. Please take it off!” And I wouldn’t move until they did. They could carry me, but that was tiresome. You can punish a child, of course, but if the child is willing — quite polite, but determined — you can’t punish them forever.

  “You were the most stubborn baby!” Mother used to say. “I’m so glad you are more reasonable now, Benigna.”

  I am. She does not dream — dear Mother! — how very reasonable I am.

  But most children certainly are not.

  My efforts were quite a good deal interfered with by having to conceal my real character. That makes life more interesting, but more complicated, too. When I was really a child I didn’t know enough for this, and got a reputation for being “too clever,”

  “sly,” Alison called it. I soon found that had its disadvantages.

  Then, for years, I tried my best not to seem clever. It wasn’t easy. If I just kept still they said I was “deep,” and to talk, that is to talk like other children and not say what I wanted to, was quite hard. But that was interesting too.

  At first, just to keep from being punished and disliked, I did it. Then as I grew older and began to see what I might do with my life, why then it was absolutely necessary.

  You see, if people think you are “a schemer,” as they call it, they are suspicious, and it makes it harder. My ambition is to be, to seem to be, that is, just like other people, and to do things — wonderful things — without ever being suspected of it. That’s fun!

  I had to realize very young that I was queer. That is, that I was different from other people. At first I just felt smart and proud; then when people talked about me, I learned how they felt about it. Isn’t it astonishing the way people talk about children right before them? As if they were deaf — or idiots!

  A child of three would have more sense than that — to say things right out before people, which she or he didn’t want them to hear.

  I suppose it was because I so much wanted people to like me that I tried so hard to please them, at first. But now that I am so much older I can reason it all out, and see that if I am to accomplish what I mean to, I have to have friends — any number of friends.

  One can learn as much as that out of fables and fairy tales; Androcles and the Lion, The Lion and the Mouse, that one about the Prince, The Ant and the Fish — lots of them.

  Then, as soon as I found out what a long, serious business it was going to be, I began to keep two diaries. There was the little one I started when I was a child of eight. Anybody could read that. It was in my little desk. I’m keeping it up, too, and it’s about ten years now. But for the last six I’ve kept another that nobody ever saw. It was lots of fun hiding it.

  The little one has facts in it. It is really very handy sometimes as a family record book, when they dispute about the day they started the furnace last year, or the date of the big snowstorm.

  I used always to sit down after supper and write in it. Father would make caustic remarks, and Mother defend me, and dear Peggy come and kiss me and say she thought keeping a diary was real nice, she wished she could remember to do it.

  Then in the precious minutes when I was alone, or when I was supposed to be writing something else in school I would put down what I really thought and felt, and hide it — like a spy with plans of the Enemy’s Fortifications. If you have enormous interesting plans to carry out and are leading not only a double but almost a triple life, you have to have a way to free your mind.

  Then I began this, a sort of story of my life, and when it is up to now I mean to destroy my second diary altogether.

  The reason I want to write it — this, I mean — is partly self-consciousness, I suppose. I’m quite old enough to see that. But what of it? If you are big, you have to know it — there’s no use pretending not to, to yourself, of all people.

  There have been infant prodigies before now, in music, or arithmetic, or things like that. I was an infant prodigy in common sense, that’s all; just plain intelligence, with, of course, that splendid Machiavellian streak thrown in.

  I have a big, clear, definite Purpose now, a great, long one, stretching through life.

  I mean to help people — all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways — without their knowing it! This is not philanthropy — not at all. Anybody can get rich, and give money to poor people. I don’t mean that. There are plenty of rich people who need help — the kind I mean. Children with horrid parents, parents with horrid children, wives with horrid husbands, husbands with horrid wives, all kinds of workers who ought to have different work — who need encouragement and to be set in the right surroundings; good people to be nice to, and bad people to get even with. I do particularly love to get even with people, like a Corsican.

  There was Mrs. Judson with her hens. That was a chance. It was ever so long ago — I must look in my little diary. Yes, here it is, innocent enough: “Shooed out Mrs. Judson’s hens.” That was all I put down.

  I was eleven then. Those hens were a nuisance to us all the time. That was before I achieved the flower garden, but we had vegetables, and we children had a few flowers.

  Those hens seemed to prefer our yard to theirs, and Mrs. Judson would not shut them up. She let them run in her big trodden yard, and when they wanted delicacies, they flew over the fence. We complained and protested, but she only got angry. We urged her to make her fence higher, but she wouldn’t. I heard all the talk, of course.

  Now, children, as I said before, can do a lot if they only realize their strength.

  We had a sort of shed down at the end of the garden. Father used it as a tool house. It had a sliding door.

  There were some boys in our room at school who liked me pretty well, because I’d read the Mayne Reid books and took an interest in them. I asked two, the Bentley twins, if they were afraid of hens. That made them laugh.

  Then I told them to come to our shed Saturday afternoon at about three o’clock — not to tell anybody, but to be there, getting over the fence from behind.

  Saturday afternoon Mrs. Judson always went downtown and so did Alison McNab. Mother would be lying down in the front room and Peggy, bless her, I could send on an errand of any length.

  Jim and Teddy Bentley were very much excited over the plan, and came silently over the back fence at the right time.

  I had fixed a string to the shed door and baited the place with corn (Five cents will buy a lot of corn). One of the boys stayed in the shed, scattering just enough corn to keep them interested; and the other one played tag with me, sort of naturally, but so as to keep the hens down at the lower end of the garden. Gradually, we got them all in the shed, crowding and gobbling, and shut the door.

  “Now come on,” I said, “and we’ll take turns holding and cutting. We mustn’t let them squawk.”

  Then one of us would grab a hen by the neck and legs. Not choking them, just so they couldn’t squawk much; and one would hold out the wings, and the other cut. Only feathers, of course. It didn’t hurt them any. As soon
as one was done, it would go back to the corn — we kept sprinkling a little more now and then.

  We worked fast, and it was very hot and feathery, but most exciting. When they were all clipped (and it took a good while to be sure — hens do look so alike), we took one at a time, holding it carefully and comfortably so it wouldn’t squawk, and dropped it over Mrs. Judson’s fence.

  There were twenty hens and a big rooster, but it seemed like hundreds.

  And then we weren’t through.

  “We’ve got to conceal the evidence of our crime!” I said. That was quite a piece of work. All those feathers to pick up — such a lot of them — and to bury. They were stiff feathers, you see, not the flying, fuzzy kind. We piled them on a big piece of paper, rolled them up hard, tied it up tight, and buried it deep, in the garden.

  Peggy came back before that was done, but she didn’t know what we were gardening so busily for. Alison saw us down there, but she was used to our games and did not suspect anything. The hens were all nosing around as usual on their own side of the fence, and some of them, poor things, were trying to get over again and couldn’t.

  Mrs. Judson noticed it in time, and I guess she had an idea who did it, but that didn’t help the hens any. However, though I was proud enough then, and so were the boys, I soon felt ashamed of this performance.

  In the first place, I had forgotten that feathers would grow again. In the second, I had quite overlooked the possible advantages of Mrs. Judson’s hens. I didn’t realize this until the next year. The fence had lost a few pickets (I think she pulled them off) and they came in worse than ever.

  I didn’t think of this advantage myself. I saw a verse in a newspaper:

  When your neighbor’s hens

  Come across the way,

  Don’t let angry passions rise —

  Fix a place for them to lay.

  That was better, a lot better. I studied the best henhouses that any of our friends had, and asked intelligent questions. People seem always glad to tell a child things if the child is polite; they seem to feel complimented somehow.

  The Bentley twins had a toolchest, and lots of old pieces of wood they had accumulated in their yard, and between us we made the best henhouse of the neighborhood out of our old shed.

  Of course Father had to be persuaded to let us do it, and to let me keep the few Leghorns I could afford to buy out of my pocket money. He was horrid about it, but finally agreed. “My decoys,” I called them. Alison let me have a good deal of stuff from the kitchen to help out in feeding, and Mother bought the eggs from me, at a little less than market price. She was astonished at the steady way my hens laid — an egg a day for each one, right along.

  I was out early and late to get those eggs; and the extra ones — sometimes there were six or more that should have been Mrs. Judson’s — the twins would go and sell to people. Nice people like to encourage children in earning money that way, and the eggs were new-laid.

  It was this hen business which started me on my great plan of learning things. I was twelve — and I’m eighteen now. Six years. How much one can learn in six years.

  That toolchest of the twins was a revelation to me. It was such fun, such gorgeous fun, to make things. At school they taught the boys to work in wood and metal and so on, but we girls could only cook and sew. At first this made me angry — not that I showed it — but later I saw the advantages. In the first place, you can get some brain exercise out of cooking and sewing. In the second place, the more things you can do the stronger you are; and in the third place, boys like to be cooked and sewed for. Mostly they despise girls, but I found that if a girl has sense, and isn’t a silly coward, and can throw straight, they like them better. It is surprising how much boys think about throwing stones as a virtue. They say “girls can’t throw stones,” and grown people talk about their collarbones being different.

  As for me, when we went to the seashore, I used to play “duck on a rock” with the other children, with relays of other children, until I got to be a regular sharpshooter. You’d think they wouldn’t play with me if I were the best shot all the time, wouldn’t you? Yes, but you can shoot at more things than the “duck.” I only knocked that off about as often as they did, or a little less so; but I hit the pebble I aimed for, oftener and oftener.

  You can learn to do anything, I found, just anything, if you give your mind to it, work steadily, and never get excited or discouraged.

  When I was older I saw a thing that a man named Hunt said — William Hunt, an artist. “If you want to paint, paint.”

  That’s all. Just do it, do it anyhow, and by and by, you can!

  Well, I meant to be able to do as many things as I possibly could, and as soon as I got well started on that, life became tremendously interesting. Now let me count back. There was the cooking and sewing. I didn’t like them particularly, but they would help.

  All they taught us in school I learned, and then began at home. Alison was hard to persuade, but I made a special study of her ways, noticed when she was extra tired or had a toothache, and began to do little bits of her work for her. How on earth people can be so stupid as to neglect this line of advantage I cannot see — not only foolish children, but foolish everybody. Here is a world full of people, and only one you. What you do to them is a small matter; what they do to you is a large matter — anybody can see that. And unless you are a towering genius or something like that, you need people, always, to help you.

  Families come first, naturally, and, barring Father, I was doing pretty well with mine.

  Not to be “too clever” with Alison. Not to be “too deep.” To be quiet, mostly; and when I talked, to talk like other children — as far as I could. Story books were safest; one can repeat other people’s stories without committing oneself to anything.

  Little by little, I managed so that Alison liked me as well as she liked Peggy. I heard her admit to Mother one day: “Benny’s none so bad. She’s quite a help i’ the hoose.”

  So I learned a lot, not just cooking, but all you do in a kitchen, and in general.

  I asked to keep our room in order, Peggy’s and mine, and used to practice on that in the way of dusting and putting things away. Dear Peggy was a scatterer, but the more she scattered, the more I put up. I wasn’t angry with her, for you see I didn’t care at all about the things, only about learning how.

  To be quick, quiet, dexterous, neat — all the nice adjectives I read in books about maids and housewives. “Who knows when I may need it?” I said to myself. And sure enough... but that’s a long way ahead.

  Anyway I learned all that was in reach about housework, and managing, too; buying things and so on; and got leave now and then to make things like gingerbread or cookies or fudge. Of course, those things they’d let me give my friends, and when I came over into the twins’ yard with a lot of hot, nice-smelling cookies, they let me use their tools some.

  They let me play ball with them, too, in the yard, said I was “a good catch — for a girl.” They never would admit that I could throw as well as they could, but I did all the same. What they admitted didn’t matter, it was doing it.

  Then in my second diary I began to make lists of all I could learn. As to school studies, they didn’t interest me as much as real things, but I could see that some arithmetic was necessary — enough to keep accounts; I got that pretty thoroughly by helping Mother keep hers. Poor, dear Mother. She was glad enough to be helped.

  Languages were of some use too, even the dead ones; at least Latin, if you want French and Italian and those.

  When it came to the real live sciences — things that are so... that work, that you can see work — why those were just a pleasure.

  Games are good, too, big games, like chess and whist. The one thing that I feel I have to thank Father for is that he played checkers and chess so well, and was willing to play with me.

  I nearly spoiled it when I began to beat him. Mad! You never saw anybody so mad. He just couldn’t stand it. Then he said
he wouldn’t play at all, and I was horrified and remembered my “duck on a rock” just in time.

  “Just one more, Father!” I begged him. “For revenge, you know.”

  Well, he beat that one. And he beat most of the time after that, keeping one ahead always, but with me always near enough to make him a little anxious. Meanwhile I gained and gained. I could see my checkmates further and further ahead, and just at the proper moment I would make a misplay. I’d give him a pawn and learn to play just as well; a bishop, and work harder; a knight, and still keep up; a queen, and then get his. I played games within games, all splendid practice, and yet Father beat the most, and was satisfied.

  He bragged of me, too, and sometimes had me play a game with friends of his; he liked me to beat them. So we got on very well, with proper care on my part.

  And I began to see for myself, in my own practice, that it isn’t the winning that matters, it’s the game; it’s learning how to play.

  The best game of all was the big one — living. As I grew I began to see more and more of it: what fun it was, how wide and endless, and what poor players most people were. They had no plans at all, apparently, and no idea of rules beyond “second hand low, third hand high, fourth hand take it if you can.”

  Making people like you is a game. Learning to like people is a game. They work together too. You see at first I was really very much taken up with what went on in my own mind, and was inclined to be very critical about other people’s foolishness. But I soon got the idea of pleasing people, as I’ve already put down, and later I saw the necessity of the other. “Why, they are people — that’s all. This is the way they act. If I wait for a lot of wise, careful people to love I shall be very lonesome.”

  Then I’d write it down large — just for myself:

  “What do I want to do in life?

  “I want to be big — Big — BIG!