Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  We were off in ten minutes, light-footed and happy, and the day was all that could be asked. He brought a perfect lunch, too, and had made it all himself. I confess it tasted better to me than my own cooking; but perhaps that was the climb.

  When we were nearly down we stopped by a spring on a broad ledge, and supped, making tea as he liked to do out-of-doors. We saw the round sun setting at one end of a world view, and the round moon rising at the other; calmly shining each on each.

  And then he asked me to be his wife. —

  We were very happy.

  “But there’s a condition!” said he all at once, sitting up straight and looking very fierce. “You mustn’t cook!”

  “What!” said I. “Mustn’t cook?”

  “No,” said he, “you must give it up — for my sake.”

  I stared at him dumbly.

  “Yes, I know all about it,” he went on, “Lois told me. I’ve seen a good deal of Lois — since you’ve taken to cooking. And since I would talk about you, naturally I learned a lot. She told me how you were brought up, and how strong your domestic instincts were — but bless your artist soul dear girl, you have some others!” Then he smiled rather queerly and murmured, “surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.”

  “I’ve watched you, dear, all summer;” he went on, “it doesn’t agree with you.

  “Of course the things taste good — but so do my things! I’m a good cook myself. My father was a cook, for years — at good wages. I’m used to it you see.

  “One summer when I was hard up I cooked for a living — and saved money instead of starving.”

  “O ho!” said I, “that accounts for the tea — and the lunch!”

  “And lots of other things,” said he. “But you haven’t done half as much of your lovely work since you started this kitchen business, and — you’ll forgive me, dear — it hasn’t been as good. Your work is quite too good to lose; it is a beautiful and distinctive art, and I don’t want you to let it go. What would you think of me if I gave up my hard long years of writing for the easy competence of a well-paid cook!”

  I was still too happy to think very clearly. I just sat and looked at him. “But you want to marry me?” I said.

  “I want to marry you, Malda, — because I love you — because you are young and strong and beautiful — because you are wild and sweet and — fragrant, and — elusive, like the wild flowers you love. Because you are so truly an artist in your special way, seeing beauty and giving it to others. I love you because of all this, because you are rational and highminded and capable of friendship, — and in spite of your cooking!”

  “But — how do you want to live?”

  “As we did here — at first,” he said. “There was peace, exquisite silence. There was beauty — nothing but beauty. There were the clean wood odors and flowers and fragrances and sweet wild wind. And there was you — your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then. When you took to cooking it jarred on me. I have been a cook, I tell you, and I know what it is. I hated it — to see my wood-flower in a kitchen. But Lois told me about how you were brought up to it and loved it — and I said to myself, ‘I love this woman; I will wait and see if I love her even as a cook.’ And I do, Darling: I withdraw the condition. I will love you always, even if you insist on being my cook for life!”

  “O I don’t insist!” I cried. “I don’t want to cook — I want to draw! But I thought — Lois said — How she has misunderstood you!”

  “It is not true, always, my dear,” said he, “that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; at least it’s not the only way. Lois doesn’t know everything, she is young yet! And perhaps for my sake you can give it up. Can you sweet?”

  Could I? Could I? Was there ever a man like this?

  WHEN I WAS A WITCH

  If I had understood the terms of that one-sided contract with Satan, the Time of Witching would have lasted longer — you may be sure of that. But how was I to tell? It just happened, and has never happened again, though I’ve tried the same preliminaries as far as I could control them.

  The thing began all of a sudden, one October midnight — the 30th, to be exact. It had been hot, really hot, all day, and was sultry and thunderous in the evening; no air stirring, and the whole house stewing with that ill-advised activity which always seems to move the steam radiator when it isn’t wanted.

  I was in a state of simmering rage — hot enough, even without the weather and the furnace — and I went up on the roof to cool off. A top-floor apartment has that advantage, among others — you can take a walk without the mediation of an elevator boy!

  There are things enough in New York to lose one’s temper over at the best of times, and on this particular day they seemed to all happen at once, and some fresh ones. The night before, cats and dogs had broken my rest, of course. My morning paper was more than usually mendacious; and my neighbor’s morning paper — more visible than my own as I went down town — was more than usually salacious. My cream wasn’t cream — my egg was a relic of the past. My “new” napkins were giving out.

  Being a woman, I’m supposed not to swear; but when the motorman disregarded my plain signal, and grinned as he rushed by; when the subway guard waited till I was just about to step on board and then slammed the door in my face — standing behind it calmly for some minutes before the bell rang to warrant his closing — I desired to swear like a mule-driver.

  At night it was worse. The way people paw one’s back in the crowd! The cow-puncher who packs the people in or jerks them out — the men who smoke and spit, law or no law — the women whose saw-edged cart-wheel hats, swashing feathers and deadly pins, add so to one’s comfort inside.

  Well, as I said, I was in a particularly bad temper, and went up on the roof to cool off. Heavy black clouds hung low overhead, and lightning flickered threateningly here and there.

  A starved, black cat stole from behind a chimney and mewed dolefully. Poor thing! She had been scalded.

  The street was quiet for New York. I leaned over a little and looked up and down the long parallels of twinkling lights. A belated cab drew near, the horse so tired he could hardly hold his head up.

  Then the driver, with a skill born of plenteous practice, flung out his long-lashed whip and curled it under the poor beast’s belly with a stinging cut that made me shudder. The horse shuddered too, poor wretch, and jingled his harness with an effort at a trot.

  I leaned over the parapet and watched that man with a spirit of unmitigated ill-will.

  “I wish,” said I, slowly — and I did wish it with all my heart— “that every person who strikes or otherwise hurts a horse unnecessarily, shall feel the pain intended — and the horse not feel it!”

  It did me good to say it, anyhow, but I never expected any result. I saw the man swing his great whip again, and — lay on heartily. I saw him throw up his hands — heard him scream — but I never thought what the matter was, even then.

  The lean, black cat, timid but trustful, rubbed against my skirt and mewed.

  “Poor Kitty” I said; “poor Kitty! It is a shame!” And I thought tenderly of all the thousands of hungry, hunted cats who stink and suffer its a great city.

  Later, when I tried to sleep, and up across the stillness rose the raucous shrieks of some of these same sufferers, my pity turned cold. “Any fool that will try to keep a cat in a city!” I muttered, angrily.

  Another yell — a pause — an ear-torturing, continuous cry. “I wish,” I burst forth, “that every cat in the city was comfortably dead!”

  A sudden silence fell, and in course of time I got to sleep.

  Things went fairly well next morning, till I tried another egg. They were expensive eggs, too.

  “I can’t help it!” said my sister, who keeps house.

  “I know you can’t,” I admitted. “But somebody could help it. I wish the people who are responsible had to eat their o
ld eggs, and never get a good one till they sold good ones!”

  “They’d stop eating eggs, that’s all,” said my sister, “and eat meat.”

  “Let ’em eat meat!” I said, recklessly. “The meat is as bad as the eggs! It’s so long since we’ve had a clean, fresh chicken that I’ve forgotten how they taste!”

  “It’s cold storage,” said my sister. She is a peaceable sort; I’m not.

  “Yes, cold storage!” I snapped. “It ought to be a blessing — to tide over shortages, equalize supplies, and lower prices. What does it do? Corner the market, raise prices the year round, and make all the food bad!”

  My anger rose. “If there was any way of getting at them!” I cried. “The law don’t touch ‘em. They need to be cursed somehow! I’d like to do it! I wish the whole crowd that profit by this vicious business might taste their bad meat, their old fish, their stale milk — whatever they ate. Yes, and feel the prices as we do!”

  “They couldn’t you know; they’re rich,” said my sister.

  “I know that,” I admitted, sulkily. “There’s no way of getting at ‘em. But I wish they could. And I wish they knew how people hated ‘em, and felt that, too — till they mended their ways!”

  When I left for my office I saw a funny thing. A man who drove a garbage cart took his horse by the bits and jerked and wrenched brutally. I was amazed to see him clap his hands to his own jaws with a moan, while the horse philosophically licked his chops and looked at him.

  The man seemed to resent his expression, and struck him on the head, only to rub his own poll and swear amazedly, looking around to see who had hit him. the horse advanced a step, stretching a hungry nose toward a garbage pail crowned with cabbage leaves, and the man, recovering his sense of proprietorship, swore at him and kicked him in the ribs. That time he had to sit down, turning pale and weak. I watched with growing wonder and delight.

  A market wagon came clattering down the street; the hard-faced young ruffian fresh for his morning task. He gathered the ends of the reins and brought them down on the horse’s back with a resounding thwack. The horse did not notice this at all, but the boy did. He yelled!

  I came to a place where many teamsters were at work hauling dirt and crushed stone. A strange silence and peace hung over the scene where usually the sound of the lash and sight of brutal blows made me hurry by. The men were talking together a little, and seemed to be exchanging notes. It was too good to be true. I gazed and marvelled, waiting for my car.

  It came, merrily running along. It was not full. There was one not far ahead, which I had missed in watching the horses; there was no other near it in the rear.

  Yet the coarse-faced person in authority who ran it, went gaily by without stopping, though I stood on the track almost, and waved my umbrella.

  A hot flush of rage surged to my face. “I wish you felt the blow you deserve,” said I, viciously, looking after the car. “I wish you’d have to stop, and back to here, and open the door and apologize. I wish that would happen to all of you, every time you play that trick.”

  To my infinite amazement, that car stopped and backed till the front door was before me. The motorman opened it. holding his hand to his cheek. “Beg your pardon, madam!” he said.

  I passed in, dazed, overwhelmed. Could it be? Could it possibly be that — that what I wished came true. The idea sobered me, but I dismissed it with a scornful smile. “No such luck!” said I.

  Opposite me sat a person in petticoats. She was of a sort I particularly detest. No real body of bones and muscles, but the contours of grouped sausages. Complacent, gaudily dressed, heavily wigged and ratted, with powder and perfume and flowers and jewels — and a dog.

  A poor, wretched, little, artificial dog — alive, but only so by virtue of man’s insolence; not a real creature that God made. And the dog had clothes on — and a bracelet! His fitted jacket had a pocket — and a pocket-handkerchief! He looked sick and unhappy.

  I meditated on his pitiful position, and that of all the other poor chained prisoners, leading unnatural lives of enforced celibacy, cut off from sunlight, fresh air, the use of their limbs; led forth at stated intervals by unwilling servants, to defile our streets; over-fed, under-exercised, nervous and unhealthy.

  “And we say we love them!” said I, bitterly to myself. “No wonder they bark and howl and go mad. No wonder they have almost as many diseases as we do! I wish—” Here the thought I had dismissed struck me agin. “I wish that all the unhappy dogs in cities would die at once!”

  I watched the sad-eyed little invalid across the car. He dropped his head and died. She never noticed it till she got off; then she made fuss enough.

  The evening papers were full of it. Some sudden pestilence had struck both dogs and cats, it would appear. Red headlines struck the eye, big letters, and columns were filled out of the complaints of those who had lost their “pets,” of the sudden labors of the board of health, and interviews with doctors.

  All day, as I went through the office routine, the strange sense of this new power struggled with reason and common knowledge. I even tried a few furtive test “wishes” — wished that the waste basket would fall over, that the inkstand would fill itself; but they didn’t.

  I dismissed the idea as pure foolishness, till I saw those newspapers, and heard people telling worse stories.

  One thing I decided at once — not to tell a soul. “Nobody’d believe me if I did,” said I to myself. “And I won’t give ’em the chance. I’ve scored on cats and dogs, anyhow — and horses.”

  As I watched the horses at work that afternoon, and thought of all their unknown sufferings from crowded city stables, bad air and insufficient food, and from the wearing strain of asphalt pavements in wet and icy weather, I decided to have another try on horses.

  “I wish,” said I, slowly and carefully, but with a fixed intensity of purposes, “that every horse owner, keeper, hirer and driver or rider, might feel what the horse feels, when he suffers at our hands. Feel it keenly and constantly till the case is mended.”

  I wasn’t able to verify this attempt for some time; but the effect was so general that it got widely talked about soon; and this “new wave of humane feeling” soon raised the status of horses in our city. Also it diminished their numbers. People began to prefer motor drays — which was a mighty good thing.

  Now I felt pretty well assured in my own mind, and kept my assurance to my self. Also I began to make a list of my cherished grudges, with a fine sense of power and pleasure.

  “I must be careful,” I said to myself; “very careful; and, above all things, make the punishment fit the crime.”

  The subway crowding came to my mind next; both the people who crowd because they have to, and the people who make them. “I mustn’t punish anybody, for what they can’t help,” I mused. “But when it’s pure meanness!” Then I bethought me of the remote stockholders, of the more immediate directors, of the painfully prominent officials and insolent employees — and got to work.

  “I might as well make a good job of it while this lasts,” said I to myself. “It’s quite a responsibility, but lots of fun.” And I wished that every person responsible for the condition of our subways might be mysteriously compelled to ride up and down in them continuously during rush hours.

  This experiment I watched with keen interest, but for the life of me I could see little difference. There were a few more well-dressed persons in the crowds, that was all. So I came to the conclusion that the general public was mostly to blame, and carried their daily punishment without knowing it.

  For the insolent guards and cheating ticket-sellers who give you short change, very slowly, when you are dancing on one foot and your train is there, I merely wished that they might feel the pain their victims would like to give them, short of real injury. They did, I guess.

  Then I wished similar things for all manner of corporations and officials. It worked. It worked amazingly. There was a sudden conscientious revival all over the country. T
he dry bones rattled and sat up. Boards of directors, having troubles enough of their own, were aggravated by innumerable communications from suddenly sensitive stockholders.

  In mills and mints and railroads, things began to mend. The country buzzed. The papers fattened. The churches sat up and took credit to themselves. I was incensed at this; and, after brief consideration, wished that every minister would preach to his congregation exactly what he believed and what he thought of them.

  I went to six services the next Sunday — about ten minutes each, for two sessions. It was most amusing. A thousand pulpits were emptied forthwith, refilled, re-emptied, and so on, from week to week. People began to go to church; men largely — women didn’t like it as well. They had always supposed the ministers thought more highly of them than now appeared to be the case.

  One of my oldest grudges was against the sleeping-car people; and now I began to consider them. How often I had grinned and borne it — with other thousands — submitting helplessly.

  Here is a railroad — a common carrier — and you have to use it. You pay for your transportation, a good round sum.

  Then if you wish to stay in the sleeping car during the day, they charge you another two dollars and a half for the privilege of sitting there, whereas you have paid for a seat when you bought your ticket. That seat is now sold to another person — twice sold! Five dollars for twenty-four hours in a space six feet by three by three at night, and one seat by day; twenty-four of these privileges to a car — $120 a day for the rent of the car — and the passengers to pay the porter besides. That makes $44,800 a year.

  Sleeping cars are expensive to build, they say. So are hotels; but they do not charge at such a rate. Now, what could I do to get even? Nothing could ever put back the dollars into the millions of pockets; but it might be stopped now, this beautiful process.

  So I wished that all persons who profited by this performance might feel a shame so keen that they would make public avowal and apology, and, as partial restitution, offer their wealth to promote the cause of free railroads!