Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  As soon as spring opened and I began to work in my enlarged garden, there was Robert, being so practically helpful that I couldn’t refuse him. A man is a very useful thing after all — when he’s willing. I had always thought of them chiefly as Obstacles, my experience being rather limited.

  Also I found that with this nice boy always about, talking of his ideals and hopes and things (he didn’t propose, you see; he couldn’t because he was only a student, but he wanted to), I began to feel a sort of change in my own mind. It was a funny, quicksandy sort of feeling. Here I was, just starting out in life — shall be twenty-one before very long now — it seems a lifetime since I began this record. Well — it is my lifetime, practically. Then right at the beginning, just as I was ready to break loose and Go — here was this nice boy offering me a coop. The worst of it was that coops began to look almost attractive!

  “This won’t do,” I said. “This will not do! Women have been known to lose their heads in a case like this. Sit down, and have it out with yourself, Benigna Machiavelli, before it’s too late! Do you want to marry Robert Aylesworth, or do you not?”

  Then I answered myself sharp and clear: “I do not!” And yet there was something that wasn’t satisfied, something that worried me, it felt so... uncertain.

  “Can’t I handle a thing like this?” I demanded. “Am I, with all the determination of years of planning, to be changed by the first nice boy who shows he is attracted to me?”

  I took a whole evening to myself, in my attic room, and plenty of paper, and faced the thing carefully. I had no long life of experience to look back on for suggestion, and no person I cared to ask about it. Besides, if I did, they’d probably think it was a good thing — there was nothing against Robert. I knew Mother would be delighted... No, I had to think it out.

  And then, if I had no experience of my own, I had all the world’s — in books. They generally give in, I notice, unless something intervenes. I noticed that when it was a man who was sort of drifting in a direction he did not wish to go, his friends always told him there was no safety but in flight.

  “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.” I made up my mind to take no chances — I would fly.

  I determined to trust Peggy with the accounts. That would give her a sense of responsibility; and (this seemed particularly wise) to get Robert to help her with them. I showed Robert first — he was splendid in mathematics — binding him to secrecy, of course.

  “It’s for Mother,” I told him. “She can market and manage the place beautifully, but she has no head for figures. Now I want Peggy to get interested in this for her own sake and — I’ll trust you with this, too — I’m awfully afraid Peggy will marry the wrong one. No, I won’t say a word more — but I wish you’d... brother her a little.”

  He flushed to his hair and looked at me. That word “brother” almost upset him. But I was calm. “All girls need brothers,” I said, “I’m sure I’m glad of all the brothering you’ve given me.” I didn’t stop at that — not for a minute — because he looked as if he were about to say things. I went right on. “Now I’m going to tell you my real Secret, since you seem so kind and interested.” And I told him something about Father, and how there was more money in the business than Mother knew, and that I wanted to save it for her.

  “As far as you know you’ll be here until you’re through college, won’t you?” I asked. “If we keep on with boarders?”

  “Indeed, I will,” he agreed eagerly. “And oh, I do hope you’ll keep on.”

  Then I said that I felt I had too much to do, which was quite true in a way, and that I thought Peggy could do this with help. He could be a sort of auditor, and help Peggy save the money.

  Peggy was delighted with the conspiracy. She didn’t want Father to come home any more than I did. She’d never had such nice times in her life.

  We started a savings account, in my name, though I didn’t mention the amount of cash I had concealed upstairs — there’s no need of telling everything. They thought I’d done perfect wonders already in getting the Gale house to running profitably.

  I had fixed it so that poor bunch of furniture and stuff would be all paid for in a year’s time, and some left over, besides buying coal and various things. And I’d “kept back part of the price” — for salary. I’d earned it.

  But they had a couple of hundred to put in the bank, and a chance of a handsome addition from then on. Peggy knew as well as I did about Mother’s weakness of heart, and was as willing to connive as I had hoped.

  “Let her have some profit, of course, and let it grow a little — but see that she spends it, won’t you, Peggy?”

  Peggy said she would. She had a bigger salary, too, now, and that pleased her, but she wasn’t a good saver.

  I told them that it would be cheaper to let Alison do the marketing, if they could persuade Mother. “Give her $2.50 a week, per each. If she wants more, she’ll say so.”

  Robert sat with us several evenings, while I helped her get used to it. I told him that I felt so safe about my sister when he was with her.

  “Wouldn’t it be a shame,” I said, “if a nice pretty girl like that was to go and marry anybody who would make her unhappy? Of course, it may not be so. But you’ll be doing me a kindness, truly, if you will be as nice to Peggy as you can.”

  It wasn’t any hardship to be nice to Peggy, and then Robert was nice to everybody.

  Then I told Peggy that I knew she didn’t care a bit for Robert, but I had reason to believe that he had a Disappointment, and that he was an orphan anyway, and had no sister, and I thought all that she and Mother did for him was really a great comfort to the boy.

  “Perhaps he’s having too much ‘sister’ now,” she said. Peggy is not a fool — nowhere near it. But I looked blank and went on talking.

  Having got that all going nicely, I had a heart-to-heart talk with Mrs. Windsor. She always did me good. I found that she was quite happy there, and meant to stay. I’d thought she would, and I felt safe about Mother while she was there.

  “There’s only one thing that worries me,” I said. “If Father comes back I’m afraid he’ll make Mother give it all up. And then she’ll just settle down and be the frail invalid she was before. Mother needs people. She needs friends, and young folks around, and something going on. You’d back her up, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Windsor?”

  “Your mother owns this house, I understand?”

  “Yes, and she’s signed the lease for the other one.”

  “And your father, so far, has not... well, has not been very successful in business?”

  “No, not ever — just a spurt now and then, and then we’d get in debt and be poor for ever so long.”

  “Your mother has a perfect right to carry on this work if she chooses. I shall certainly do all I can to strengthen her determination if necessary.”

  Then I told Mother I thought I needed a vacation, and would she mind if I went to see Grandpa for a while. She was very willing — she had worried over my working so hard for so long.

  Grandpa was willing, too, and I went off at once, with a suitcase and a little handbag, and hidden away in a little oilskin bag that hung around my neck, $500.

  Grandpa would do as a sort of springboard.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As I look over my notes for that year, whole books of them, I realize that any true autobiography is too long. Why, you live every day, and things happen, real interesting things. Also there are so many people — I keep a record of them, you see — and people who are more amusing and surprising all the time.

  Of course if you just stay at home, as most girls do, all the people you know are family and schoolmates and church people, and afterwards the ones you meet “socially.” But that never satisfied me. I had all those classified quite early, and all the rest of the world was left to get acquainted with.

  I had determined on a wander year — maybe more. I wanted to “see life,” as it says in the books; not that silly
get-drunk-and-play-cards behavior that is called “seeing life,” nor yet the dinner-opera-dancing kind. Neither of these seemed like life to me.

  I wanted to see how life worked, to learn how to run things and watch people doing it. There at Grandpa’s I rested awhile. I found that I was really quite tired. That Robert affair had bothered me more than I imagined such a thing could. Not that I loved him — I could see easily enough that it wasn’t that. I didn’t want to give up my life for him. I didn’t want to give up anything for him. It was just that he was such a nice fellow and it is so pleasant to have somebody to care such a lot about you. It’s no wonder so many girls marry whomever asks them, especially if they are not really satisfied at home. But I had other fish to fry, very different ones, and didn’t propose to have my frying cut off short before it began.

  So I sat down at Grandpa’s, in my big cool corner bedroom with the four windows, and made a chart of my life. It was a good deal like an ancient map — chopped off short with “unexplored region,” or “circling unknown sea,” but it was clear enough as far as it went.

  “Twenty-one,” I said, “shall be in a couple of months. Healthy and strong.

  “Present capacities: a. — Housekeeping, managing, purchasing. b. — Cooking, catering, serving. c. — Sewing, designing, dressmaking. d. — Stenography and typing.

  Education — ordinary.

  Special talents: Self-control, understanding people; knowing how to manage them.

  Purposes in life:

  A. — To grow. To be as big as I can — in every sort of way.

  B. — To use my powers to straighten things as far as I can.”

  I was very certain about A, completely clear indeed, and determined; B was sort of misty. So far I had just done little things that came up, and there always seemed to be something that needed fixing.

  “Now then,” I wrote down, “how can I grow the most and the fastest in the next five years — or six — or seven?”

  You see, I had not made up my mind inflexibly not to marry; I just didn’t mean to if I could help it, and certainly not until I had done a lot of other things first. So I planned for five years, definitely. Twenty-six is quite young enough to “settle down,” as they call it.

  “I’ll get a job in an office, just for a starter,” I said. “Get an idea of real business methods.” That I put to Grandpa confidentially — but I guess I’ll tell about the plan first. It was a tentative plan. I knew well enough how things change on your very hands, but I meant to have a settled purpose.

  “Here is a lifetime,” I said solemnly. “I’ll lay it out as if I were not to marry — that’s safest. And the other end is the place to plan from.

  “Age. What do I want to have about me, and behind me, when I’m old?”

  Then I’d sit back in my rocker and look out at the big trees and soft changing shadows on the grass, and think, think hard about Age.

  There were plenty of old people to think about. I knew a lot of them, mostly as grandmas and grandpas.

  Health was the main thing. To keep well always so as to be pink and straight and cheerful at seventy — that was certainly common sense.

  I remembered Mrs. Windsor’s mother, who came to see her at our house once, and that minister from Nebraska who preached in Dr. Cutter’s church one summer, and the big surgeon from Germany that Dr. Bronson had to visit him once. Splendid old people, not crabbed or feeble or foolish.

  Then besides health, any old person has to have some money. If they haven’t, they’re just poor relations, and are put upon.

  Of course the old men generally do, but the old women generally don’t. A grandpa is a person to be considered on account of what he may give you — before or after; but a grandma is only to be considered according to whether you love her or not, apparently.

  “I shall have my own money, and enough of it,” I determined, “married or single. And I shall have a home — a home of my own, not just somebody else’s home that I keep house in.” And I thought of another old person I knew, a relative of Jennie Gale’s on her father’s side, who had a beautiful place in the country, and people loved to visit her. She had crowds of jolly young folks and various kinds of people. She never was lonesome, that I could see, though an “old maid.”

  Health, money, home — what next?

  Friends! Now that is the most important of all, almost. Friends are the richest kind of riches. I’ve noticed old folks mourn because of the “dropping off” of their friends, their “old friends.” One would think that friends were strictly limited to one crop, like brothers and sisters. I mean to plant mine in succession, like green peas and sweetcorn, so I’ll always have ripe ones. Why, that relation of Jenny’s was simply worshipped by some of those young things, boys as well as girls, and she always had middle-aged ones too.

  Health, money, home, friends. How about Family? That I wouldn’t plan for. If it came, it would come. I was planning for life without it, so’s to be on the safe side. There’s a certain definite proportion of unmarried women. Funny that young women never plan accordingly!

  What next? What kind of an old woman did I want to be?

  Here was where that big A, “To Grow,” came in. I wanted above all things to be a worthy person. To be a plus and not a minus. Not to spend my days wanting things and hanging on to people, and being hurt or pleased or disappointed by the things they did. I wanted to be a wise person — wise and able. One that other folks would come to for advice and help, and not be disappointed. Sort of, “Oh, we’ll ask Benigna Machiavelli — she’ll tell us!”

  Of course I knew amiable old ladies, and awfully kind nice ones, but they didn’t know much about Life — only about recipes and patterns and their special notions about babies.

  Now my idea was to enlarge my circle of experience as widely as possible, and to keep on enlarging it. So I meditated very deeply on how much could be put into that five years, and more, if I had more free to use in the same way.

  Languages. I’d always been good at languages, such as we had in school. I had a background of Latin, and the beginnings of German and French. One thing I determined on was to spend several summers abroad and learn different languages on the spot.

  This was extremely interesting to lay out.

  “French,” I said. “Paris, of course. Not as a tourist — they’d talk English to me. Just be there; be left on my own resources. Get board in a nice refined French family, and get work in a French shop, a business office. Yes, that will be best. Try more than one. Can go over as companion or nursemaid. Better get nursemaid’s training. Need a lot of Personal Recommendations, that’s one thing sure. Get them. Can come back the same way. Can always take a vacation when I need it. See to it that I have some money with me, always.”

  Then I’d hug my little $500, the nucleus of all my further fortunes.

  Danger? That was another point to consider. If I were going out like this, all about the earth at random, and especially if I had money with me, there would always be an element of danger.

  It was tremendously exciting to plan for that. One thing I determined on — to have Disguises! I must learn to “make up” my face. It would be good to take a little while on the stage perhaps, behind the scenes, and learn a bit about that. And I put down: “Lady’s maid experience — situation with actor.”

  I got up at this point, I remember, and looked at myself in the glass. Now as I’ve said before, I was not beautiful nor distinguished looking. I suppose a discriminating describer, like those novelists, could have seen a lot in my face, but most people didn’t seem to. Still I was young and fresh and not wholly unattractive — there was Robert to show that.

  Then I had a perfectly lovely idea.

  “I’ll fix up to look older!” I said. “A lot older! There are plenty of old ladies planning to look young — I’ll learn how to look thirty or forty! Oh, what fun! Then it’ll be so jolly to pop out, as a young woman, when I want to.” And I determined on that actor/lady’s maid arrangement as
really useful.

  “I’ll have a whole series of names,” I said. “I’ll have a lot of costumes. I’ll learn enough trades to get work anywhere! I’ll go anywhere I please on earth — !”

  It was tremendously exciting.

  When I got my tentative plan well drawn out it was like an old-fashioned game I saw when I was little, where there was a kind of winding maze, with the “House of Happiness” in the middle. You spun a top, I think, a hexagonal one, numbered, and moved counters to that number. My plan was much clearer and better. There was a great circle and then inner ones — and in the middle was that Splendid Old Age I was planning for. In the inner circles there were not many things to do, because naturally you don’t expect old people to do as much as young ones, and then, also naturally, I couldn’t specify very much that far ahead. But in the outer ones!

  I got a census list of Occupations and marked in red all the ones I’d really like to try. There were a lot. Then I put the difficult and highly skilled ones well in toward the middle — things I’d like to do when I was thirty, when I was forty, when I was fifty — it was tremendously exciting to put things down on the fifty line.

  There was College President, Position in the City Government, Owner of a System of Hotels, Head of a Great School, Manufacturer with Model Factories — things like that. And from each of those, lines ran back to the wider rings where I had arranged the successive smaller undertakings by which I proposed to lead up to the big ones.

  The outside ring was where I stood now, planning for my next job. I could see at the outset that every one of them would help with the others. Then I said, “Wait a minute — which of these lines is going to bring me in touch with people on top? Big People — aristocrats — I want to know all kinds.”

  It wasn’t done in a minute, this chart. I stayed a month at Grandpa’s, resting and thinking.

  This aristocracy idea was not easy to handle at first, but I went at it from the top end, as I usually do.

  “Wanted: easy familiarity with people of the best manners.” I fixed on the English aristocracy, at least to begin with — and laid out this line of advance. “Last step, trusted and friendly companion with elderly and perhaps eccentric English woman who has fine houseparties. Back of that, high recommendations from lesser English person. Back of that, introduction by American friend, with very high recommendation.”