the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't
understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish."
"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the
conversation book."
"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green
peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--"
"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'"
I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end
your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they
do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always
pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind. Even with an American
cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison
steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty
hours."
Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in
the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had
consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a
rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly
tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to
supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an
indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface.
People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of
this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men
and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not
particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of
these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest
gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best
isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a
score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare,
canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look
askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome"
liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor
whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment.
Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not
to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return,
the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up.
We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American
institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We
knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and
a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts
its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no lack of
cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths.
Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath
of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The
Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by
Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hôte_-y name. I lay back in
my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence.
As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned
that I should not have to wait long. I was right.
"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the
civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers
as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his
able lieutenants."
"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I
should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of
low-livers."
"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory
of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at
one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the
hands of the metropolis of the New World.'"
"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant
talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris
there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they
have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New
York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any
more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the
American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery."
"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know
you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just
talking cussedly with your own wife."
A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the
humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth _was_ most trying. We were
bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to
which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each
wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers,
forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me.
"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and
from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in
the face.
For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could
say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure
that I wasn't that I was about to close the door.
"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth
the poppies.
I came to myself with an effort. "She is the--the cook," I muttered
weakly.
"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her
voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable."
The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went
toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was
amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of
tongues, and then--I groped my way back to Letitia.
"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried.
"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent
of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she
said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were
festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and
convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a
happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought
the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a
cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however,
that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook.
"Then let us call her a 'girl,'" said Letitia.
"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly.
"If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness
knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!"
This time Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More
arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily
attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which,
in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were
Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra--as we soon learned. It was
wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at
home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and
humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia
stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door.
Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our
house.
"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say
to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent--most uncalled for."
"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But
please don't think _I_ shall, for I assure you that I shan't. I suppose
that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want
to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks by
doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were
possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to
labor."
I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite
unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again she took up the cook-book. The
sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we
could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of
her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My
nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that
there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have
slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to
comfort me.
Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs _à la reine_ seemed as
difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential
calculus--and much more expensive. Certainly the eight giggling cooks in
the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried
themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play
pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and
wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was
close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought
it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock
struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the
door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and
a mountain of cake--that in my famished condition made my mouth
water--and announced in a severe, yet subdued tone, that the revel must
cease.
"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house."
Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of
tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard
noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our
door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and
the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would
never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features.
"You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own.
"I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of
this place."
Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation,
humiliation--all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse
Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the
language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The
dense, dumb Scandinavian--the lady of the "me no understand"
rejoinder--apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled.
Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was
unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden
energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in
Swedish that was either pure or impure: "_Tig. Ga din väg!_"
"Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English.
I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on
account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't
allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect
themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked
before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you
alone and stop worriting. It's like your impidence to turn my
lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll--"
Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely
upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another
minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled
there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be.
"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a
smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I
haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks
after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just
you push me out."
She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged
the prospects of my _Lives of Great Men_ (not that they were worth
mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this
abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of
horrid headliners in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant
girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood
changed.
"I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I
listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what
I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday
night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and
a-treating them to ice cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't
no lady. As for you"--I seemed to be her particular pet--"when I sees a
man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I
says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk
alone."
We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade. What could we do?
To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The
antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation,
for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too.
We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of
the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our
side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to
any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses!
When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so,
Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked
a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if
the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours."
"It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to send
her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be 'done.' We've
been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at Swedish--writing exercises,
learning verbs, studying proverbs--just to talk to a woman who speaks
English as well as I do. It's--it's--so--so--mor--mortifying."
"Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will
come in handy some day."
"No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden.
I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway,
isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say
_Tig_ to her just now. _Tig_ means 'be silent.' Could anything sound
more repulsive? _Tig! Tig! Ugh!_"
Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth.
SIMILAR CASES
BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
There was once a little animal,
No bigger than a fox,
And on five toes he scampered
Over Tertiary rocks.
They called him Eohippus,
And they called him very small,
And they thought him of no value--
When they thought of him at all;
For the lumpish old Dinoceras
And Coryphodon so slow
Were the heavy aristocracy
In days of long ago.
Said the little Eohippus,
"I am going to be a horse!
And on my middle finger-nails
To run my earthly course!
I'm going to have a flowing tail!
I'm going to have a mane!
I'm going to stand fourteen hands high
On the psychozoic plain!"
The Coryphodon was horrified,
The Dinoceras was shocked;
And they chased young Eohippus,
But he skipped away and mocked;
Then they laughed enormous laughter,
And they groaned enormous groans,
And they bade young Eohippus
Go view his father's bones:
Said they, "You always were as small
And mean as now we see,
And that's conclusive evidence
That you're always going to be:
What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,
With hoofs to gallop on?
_Why, you'd have to change your nature!_"
Said the Loxolophodon:
They considered him disposed of,
And retired with gait serene;
That was the way they argued
In "the early Eocene."
There was once an Anthropoidal Ape,
Far smarter than the rest,
And everything that they could do
He always did the best;
So they naturally disliked him,
And they gave him shoulders cool,
And when they had to mention him
They said he was a fool.
Cried this pretentious Ape one day,
"I'm going to be a Man!
And stand upright, and hunt, and fight,
And conquer all I can!
I'm going to cut down forest trees,
To make my houses higher!
I'm going to kill the Mastodon!
I'm going to make a fire!"
Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes,
With laughter wild and gay;
They tried to catch that boastful one,
But he always got away;
So they yelled at him in chorus,
Which he minded not a whit;
And they pelted him with cocoanuts,
Which didn't seem to hit;
And then they gave him reasons,
Which they thought of much avail,
To prove how his preposterous
Attempt was sure to fail.
Said the sages, "In the first place,
The thing can not be done!
And, second, if it _could_ be,
It would not be any fun!
And, third, and most conclusive
And admitting no reply,
_You would have to change your nature!_
We should like to see you try!"
They chuckled then triumphantly,
These lean and hairy shapes,
For these things passed as arguments
With the Anthropoidal Apes.
There was once a Neolithic Man,
An enterprising wight,
Who made his chopping implements
Unusually bright;
Unusually clever he,
Unusually brave,
And he drew delightful Mammoths
On the borders of his cave.
To his Neolithic neighbors,
Who were startled and surprised,
Said he, "My friends, in course of time,
We shall be civilized!
We are going to live in cities!
We are going to fight in wars!
We are going to eat three times a day
Without the natural cause!
We are going to turn life upside down
About a thing called gold!
We are going to want the earth, and take
As much as we can hold!
We are going to wear great piles of stuff
Outside our proper skins!
We are going to have Diseases!
And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!"
Then they all rose up in fury
Against their boastful friend,
For prehistoric patience
Cometh quickly to an end:
Said one, "This is chimerical!
Utopian! Absurd!"
Said another, "What a stupid life!
Too dull, upon my word!"
Cried all, "Before such things can come,
You idiotic child,
_You must alter Human Nature_!"
And they all sat back and smiled:
Thought they, "An answer to that last
It will be hard to find!"
It was a clinching argument
To the Neolithic Mind!
THE OLD MAID'S HOUSE: IN PLAN
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS
Corona had five hundred dollars and some pluck for her enterprise. She
had also at her command a trifle for furnishing. But that seemed very
small capital. Her friends at large discouraged her generously. Even Tom
said he didn't know about that, and offered her three hundred more.
This manly offer she declined in a womanly manner.
"It is to be _my_ house, thank you, Tom, dear. I can live in yours at
home." ...
Corona's architectural library was small. She found on the top shelf one
book on the construction of chicken-roosts, a pamphlet in explanation of
the kindergarten system, a cook-book that had belonged to her
grandmother, and a treatise on crochet. There her domestic literature
came to an end. She accordingly bought a book entitled "North American
Homes"; then, having, in addition, begged or borrowed everything within
two covers relating to architecture that was to be found in her
immediate circle of acquaintance, she plunged into that unfamiliar
science with hopeful zeal.
The result of her studies was a mixed one. It was necessary, it seemed,
to construct the North American home in so many contradictory methods,
or else fail forever of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
that Corona felt herself to be laboring under a chronic aberration of
mind.... Then the plans. Well, the plans, it must be confessed, Corona
_did_ find it difficult to understand. She always had found it difficult
to understand such things; but then she had hoped several weeks of close
architectural study would shed light upon the density of the subject.
She grew quite morbid about it. She counted the steps when she went
up-stairs to bed at night. She estimated the bedroom post when she
walked in the cold, gray dawn....
But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got
upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact,
although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one
night, and Susy came and looked them over.
"Why, these houses are all one-story," said Susy. "Besides, they're
nothing but lines, anyway. I shouldn't draw a house so."
Corona laughed with some embarrassment and no effort at enlightenment.
She was not used to finding herself and Susy so nearly on the same
intellectual level as in this instance. She merely asked: "How should
you draw it?"
"Why, so," said Susy, after some severe thought. So she took her little
blunt lead pencil, that the baby had chewed, and drew her plan as
follows:
[Illustration: SUSY'S PLAN]
Corona made no comment upon this plan, except to ask Susy if that were
the way to spell L; and then to look in the dictionary, and find that it
was not spelled at all. Tom came in, and asked to see what they were
doing.
"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These
architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the
first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled."
"_I'll_ help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a
hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by
the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American
Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found
Susy crying over a telegram which ran:
Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides
turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and
flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to
all.
TOM.
This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and,
after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole
away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-town--a nice, fatherly man
who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected
superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona
confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little
plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's
plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby.
Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner
presented her points.
"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in
silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her
so much toil.
It was headed in her clear black hand:
PLAN
FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY
HOME
This was
[Illustration: CORONA'S PLAN]
"Well," said the builder, after a silence,--"well, I've seen worse."
"Thank you," said Corona, faintly.
"How does she set?" asked the builder.
"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that
set but hens.
"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?"
"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona.
"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?"
"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona.
"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder.
"Stairs? I--forgot the stairs."
"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without
an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a
widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?"
"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation.
"Scale of feet. Proportions."
"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front
would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer."
The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book
from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage,
not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger
house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what
is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn
with the beauty of science.
"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her
brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the
cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about
what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it."