Ellen wrote about this time:--
"Grandma Hathaway, Aunt Sarah and mamma, all don't know what to
do about me. I should be much grown-upper than I am. 'Mercy,'
said Aunt Sarah, 'that great girl of yours, Emily, acts so that
she makes me tremble for fear she will some day swing by a tail
from a bough, like a monkey.' [Here we see Miss Grant
foreshadowing the Darwinian theory.] They don't know I try to be
good, but I do try; but when joy gets into my feet I have to
run, and I love to feel like that. I think I only try to be good
when I am not happy. I have said my prayers about it, and the
awful thing is when I say my prayers I feel as if God said:
'Never mind, Ellen, run if you like.' They always say to me:
'Why can't you sit and sew under the trees with the other
girls?' Oh, if they only knew what we talked about when we sit
and sew! And even Roberta does, though she disapproves of all
silliness. I have never seen any girl disapprove of all
silliness as does Roberta. But what we sit and talk about is
_beaux_, though Roberta doesn't call hers that, and he isn't.
And when Roberta talks so beautifully, I often talk the same
way, but deep in my heart I know I wish I had a real beau, like
the grown-up girls we talk about. It's strange, though, that
Roberta has none, because she has more of one than any of the
rest of us, because she writes notes to Leonard Dilloway and he
carries home her books. When I said, 'He is your beau,' she was
very shocked. 'I wish you would not speak so to me,' she said,
'it pains me. I shall never love, anyway, but once. I am far too
young to think of such things.' 'Why do you do it?' I asked her.
This made her cross. 'I don't,' she answered. 'Leonard is my
friend.' But the rest of us know she is in love. So when they
talk to me about being a hoyden and ask me to sit and sew, I
feel like a hypocrite, because I know that young girls like us
are much more grown-up than they were when Aunt Sarah and
Grandma Hathaway were young, and that they would dislike one as
much as the other. Though I am young in actions I have such old
thoughts that I am surprised and wish I could help being proud
of myself for them. I have older thoughts than Janie or Mildred,
or even Roberta. Roberta sounds older, but her thoughts are tied
with strings while mine are not."
This sketch of hers is an accurate picture of the conversations
between young girls that are going on forever and ever when three or
four long-legged youngsters are together. Their talk leads inevitably,
as did ours, toward their business in life. To the lads we were
adventures--not to be confused with the real business they had to do
in the world; to us they were life itself.
Like all young girls, we lived in a close little world of our own. No
one entered it, nor could we come out toward others'. We were
passionate spectators at the feast of life, picking up the crumbs of
experience which came our way; for in our civilization we are treated
as children at an age when Juliet ran away for love, and Beatrice set
Dante's heart to beating. And yet our hearts beat, and we were tragic
and ineffectual Juliets, appearing on our balconies to youths who saw
only the shortness of our skirts. We knew without knowing that our
little lean arms were to be the cradles of the unborn generation.
Forever and ever we tried to tell those whom we met, "I am Eve," and
couldn't, not knowing the way past the angel with the flaming sword of
self-consciousness.
It was the great adventure of Janie Acres which made us conscious of
our absorption in boys. There had been a merry-making which took place
in a barn, and in talking it over afterwards, we recounted the
conversation of each boy who had spoken to us, giving the impression
of having snubbed them one and all; which, indeed, we often did, but
against our wills, because embarrassment made us gruff.
Janie had the adventure of hiding in the same corn-bin with a lad, and
what occurred in the corn-bin she was coy of telling. When pressed,
she flushed and looked the other way. It was Ellen who brought the
utter innocence and lack of romance to light with her merciless
truthfulness.
"Did he kiss you?" asked she.
We were shocked at her frankness. We never spoke of such things as
kisses directly. The delicacy of our little souls was deeply wounded.
And Janie replied:--
"Well, not exactly. But," she faltered, "he would have if I had stayed
there."
"How do you know?" asked Ellen coldly.
Thus it was she pricked the bubble of sentiment. We were all rather
horrified, immensely interested and rather envious. We now perceived
our sentimentality. We ourselves were shocked a little by some of our
temerities, for in the wide conspiracy of silence around us we
imagined we were the only adventurous ones in the world.
Characteristically, it was I who suggested that momentous association,
the "Zinias," or "Old Maid Club."
Ellen wrote:--
"We made up our minds that we were always to be true friends of
men and lift their minds up as women should. We are going to
think only of our studies, our homes, and of religion. Roberta
says we may as well begin now, for we are getting older every
minute, and one of us is already fourteen. And before we know it
we will be thinking of nothing but boys. We have only to look
around us to see what such things lead to. Patty Newcomb and
Elizabeth Taylor and all those big girls are both forward and
bold. When I said, 'Roberta, isn't noticing everything they do
and talking about it just the same as talking about boys?' she
said at once, 'It is not the same at all,' in the tone that I
know she doesn't want me to say anything more. And when I said,
'Oh, Roberta, aren't we rather young yet to think about being
old maids?' she replied sternly, 'It is never too young to
begin.'"
I feel rather sorry now for the stern, little Roberta. I feel sorry,
too, for Janie Acres and her kiss that never was. She would have been
so proud of it; it would have been her proof that she was a young
lady.