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Transcriber's note:
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have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been
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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
AT THE AGE OF EVE
[Illustration: "I--I wondered who you were, too"]
AT THE AGE OF EVE
by
KATE TRIMBLE SHARBER
Author of The Annals of Ann
With Illustrations by Paul Meylan
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
Copyright 1911
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Press of
Braunworth & Co.
Bookbinders and Printers
Brooklyn, N. Y.
TO
ANN'S GOD-PARENTS
LILLIAN BYRN HARRISON
AND
JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I ANN 1
II THE NEW NEIGHBORS 16
III THE BOOKWORM TURNS 35
IV A NEW GAME 49
V PRINCE CHARMING 67
VI NEVA'S BEAU BRUMMEL 97
VII ALFRED 123
VIII ALFRED COLLECTS A DEBT 136
IX A SHOPPING EXPEDITION 157
X ANN RECEIVES A CALLER 179
XI A DRAWN BATTLE 205
XII SHADOWS 225
XIII THANKSGIVING DAY 243
XIV SOPHIE'S STORY 262
XV THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL 287
XVI THE IDES OF MARCH 313
XVII MAY DAY 347
AT THE AGE OF EVE
AT THE AGE OF EVE
CHAPTER I
ANN
In beginning this record I find that it is no easy matter to feel at
home with a clean, blank journal. The possibilities of these spotless
pages seem to oppress me, and I am weighted down with the idea that my
opening sentences ought to sound brilliant and promising.
With this thought I have started three or four entries on scraps of
paper lying here about my desk, but I find that not one of them is the
kind of thing which would make you bend over close and knit your
brows, thinking you had picked up Plato by mistake.
No matter what lofty sentiments I have in my mind you can always hear
the swish of petticoats through my paragraphs and I regret this, for
all my life I have longed to write something that would sound like
George Eliot. In the world of books she is my idol--my lady idol, I
mean, for of course the dearest idols of all are the poets, and they
are always men.
"George Eliot is my lady idol and my man one, too," some one said to
me once when I mentioned my preference, and this exactly expresses it.
When you read what she has written you never stop to think whether it
was written by a man or by a woman. Even in these days the women who
write anything worth reading do it so cleverly that you never for a
moment suspect they clean out their fountain-pen with a hair-pin.
How _do_ they manage it, I wonder, when one adjective too many would
brand them as a female?
Yet if the sex does not show in the writing, the writing always shows
in the sex. If the most masculine man on earth takes a notion to
become a writer his friends all begin strange mutterings behind his
back, and before long some one has whispered "Sissy." Ah, and if a
woman by any chance decides to use her pen a while, so her tongue can
rest, her associates are quick to pronounce that she has grown so
_masculine_ since she started this writing business! Verily the pen is
mightier than the sword if it can influence sex in a manner that
would turn a court physician green with envy.
I should be willing to cut off my hair and call myself George, Henry
or even Sam, if I thought it would help me to be a great writer, for,
in my soul, I have always longed to write something so great and
unfeminine that it would not harm a Trappist monk.
Still, the setting forth of these wishes of mine does not help me to
get started comfortably on this new record. Do you notice that I call
it a _record_, and not a diary? This is because I expect to write in
it only occasionally--skim the cream of events, as it were, instead of
boring you with the details of the daily milking.
If it were January first, now, I could think up any number of
inspiring New Year sentiments to get started off with; sermons based
on the three R's to be met with most often at this season--Regrets,
Resolves and Reforms. Sometimes there is a fourth R which follows
quickly on the heels of these--Returns, to the old habits.
Here it is, though, midsummer; and I am sure it would seem to any one
looking on that I have no visible means of support for any kind of
journal, tucked away as I am in this little town where a girl has not
inspiration enough to keep her shirt-waist pulled down in the back.
So, with this remark about my shirt-waist, I put aside my longing to
write something like George Eliot and make a frank acknowledgment of
my skirts. Right glad I ought to be that I have them, too, for I
believe that if data were plentiful on the subject we should find that
the "mantle of charity" was originally a skirt. "Just like a fool
woman," people say leniently, and are willing to let it pass.
I am a girl, then, as you will readily gather from the foregoing,
simply by putting one and one together--the shirt-waist and the skirt.
I live near a little country town, and am vastly dissatisfied with the
cramped stage and meager audience, else why should I be keeping a
journal? A journal is not nearly so much a book in which you tell what
you do as one in which you tell what you would like to do.
Pray do not imagine from the above that I am longing for a crowded,
noisy stage, with lights glittering over tinsel. No, I am not that
kind of girl. I like a play of few actors, but where the things
happening make _the veins of the neck_ stand out!
In admitting that I do not love the village near which I live I know I
run the risk of being considered ill-natured. It would be sweeter of
me to make it out a cheery little Cranford of a place, where the
tea-kettle steams cozily and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
These things do happen, after a modern, American fashion; and the
people who own the tea-kettles and the folds are the same as other
people all over the world. I have no quarrel with them. Still, I am
forced to admit that time hangs so heavy on my hands I wash my hair
every other day. Have you ever noticed how often a woman, who has
nothing better to do, will wash her hair?
Here, then, is a brief description of the village, with malice toward
none, although at times it may sound malicious:
The surrounding country is so beautiful that if you are coming into
the town on the train you are ill-prepared for the hideous little
railway station, which is the first shock you receive. The floor of
this "depot" is dirtier than anything else on earth could be, save the
post-office floor, and there is a rusty little stove in the middle of
the room close to the box of sand, around which tobacco juice is
being eternally spit, spat, or whatever is the correct form of that
unlovely verb.
Close to the station are the livery stables, but we shall pass by as
quickly as possible; and farther up the street is the Racket Store.
Sometimes this place has a very handsome clerk from the city; it is
then a busy market. Across the street from the hotel is the millinery
establishment, and, if you are on good terms with the milliner, she
invites you to come and sit at her front window some mornings just
after the eleven-o'clock train has come, so you can get a good view of
the interesting drummers.
Most of the local attractions in the way of young men are sturdy
farmers, who, like June-bugs, appear for only a few months every
summer. The others, dry goods clerks, bookkeepers and professional
whittlers, usually line up on the back benches at church on Sunday
evenings and cause mild panics in the breasts of the unescorted girls
present, whose hearts palpitate painfully during the benediction.
But here I have set forth the doings of Sunday evening before
mentioning the events of the afternoon, which, while not exciting, are
in a way more characteristic than those of any other time. If the day
is fine the country roads blossom forth at irregular intervals with
young couples out driving or walking, close to Nature's heart, yet
caring far less for her beauties than for the sight of each other,
which, after all, _is_ nature. If there is any one in the town sick
enough for his neighbors to be really concerned about him, on Sunday
afternoon the sick one's house is swarming with a crowd sufficient to
furnish forth a funeral. This is not _called_ "profaning the Sabbath,"
but it ought to be.
On rainy days, or even on fine ones, the inhabitants who are too old
to be a-lovering usually sit around and go to sleep in their chairs,
with their mouths wide open. Besides being ungraceful, this is an
invitation to tonsilitis. Dear me! I have misspelled that word again,
for Doctor Osler says there are two l's in it, and I am sure there
are--in the kind I had last Christmas!
Somewhere in the early fall, about the time for green tomatoes to be
made up into pickle, there is the excitement of seeing the new public
school teachers file into town, and if you happen to be buying a hat
at the millinery store any time within the next few weeks you can hear
a complete description of each teacher. One paints her face until it's
mottled, you are told; another has blond hair and brunette eyebrows,
so she must have been on the stage; a third evidently has seen "better
days," for she wears a diamond ring on her little finger! There is
only _one_ more astonishing thing than the way the women of the
village talk about these teachers, and that is the way the men marry
them!
Again I find that I have anticipated and reached the autumn before I
have finished with the summer, in the very hottest part of which,
usually August, comes an "evangelist" to hold a protracted meeting.
The sound of words always meant so much to me when I was a child, and
when I first heard that word, evangelist, I pictured a great, radiant
figure, with spreading white wings growing out from a somber suit of
black clothes, and holding to his lips a long, graceful trumpet.
Naturally, this was some time ago, when I was quite young, and wanted
to be good, so that when I died I could go to heaven, where my chief
delight was going to be tending a garden full of silver bells and
cockle-shells and pretty maids all in a row. Oh, those silver bells!
In point of beauty they had no rivals in my childish imagination,
except Cinderella's glass slippers and Aaron's golden calf! A lovely
heaven it was going to be, of light pastel shades, and a great way
off from God! You see I was brought up in such an orthodox atmosphere
that I imagined God was like the principal of a school I once
attended, always looking out for offenders with a rod up his sleeve.
It was a distinct disappointment to me when I found that an evangelist
is like any ordinary preacher, except that he perspires more.
Sometimes he is sensational and preaches about lace yokes and dancing;
and on Sunday afternoon holds a meeting for men only, where he tells
them what a terribly bad man _he_ used to be! Again he is "burdened"
with the souls of the whole congregation and preaches hell and
damnation in a voice that sounds like pitchforks clanging against iron
chains. Now, city preachers seldom do anything like this. In the city
pulpits, of recent years, hell is like smallpox; it is still _there_,
but in a much milder form.
During the revivals there are always one or more abusive sermons
directed at the other churches of the town, and, of course, the
Episcopalians are ever in a class with "the Turk and the comet."
Catholics are unmentionable.
This usually causes much "hard feeling" among the good wives of the
town, at an inconvenient time, too, for the season for swapping sweet
peach pickle recipes is close at hand. The only people who can
maintain a placid spirit during these revivals are those who stay
away, and I usually try this plan, unless the evangelist happens to be
young and good-looking.
Young and good-looking, ay, there's the rub! Herein is my lack of
material for an interesting journal, so long as I stay here at home.
Notwithstanding these barriers, Cousin Eunice, who was the instigator
of my childhood's diary, has again suggested that I keep a book here
by me to "tell off" to occasionally when I feel the need of a mental
clearing-house. She says a journal has two points of advantage over
the bosom friend a girl of my age usually has; one is, that you can
shut it up when you want to go to sleep at night, and the other is
that you can burn it when you grow ashamed of the secrets it contains,
neither of which you can do to your bosom friend, no matter how badly
you may wish to.
The diary which I kept for several years while I was at the gawky age
was intended to be secreted between two pieces of board in the attic
and discovered by my grandchildren amid tumultuous applause, years
hence. But I am far too grown-up for these grandchildren now. The
knowledge of my years is ever with me, a sort of binding torment, like
an armhole that is too tight, so I shall have to leave the little
dears behind, with the fairies and the freckles that I have long since
outgrown. They, or the thought of them, used to make me feel that I
was on actual speaking terms with my other diary, but perhaps after a
while, I may feel on the same terms with you, even without their
presence.
In the first place, as a reason for this book's being, I have always
liked the notion of keeping a written account of my thoughts and
feelings, especially of my feelings, for they are usually all jumbled
up in my mind, like ribbons on a remnant counter, but after I have set
them down in black and white where I can stand off and look at them
they are no more complicated than sardines in a box. Another reason is
that in the diaries, correspondence and love-letters of interesting
people (great people, I mean) which I have read, I have found there is
a sort of interest which is lacking in their stiff-standing-collar and
high-heeled-shoes productions. In this class I have read Amiel and Sam
Pepys, and the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea, poor dear! How her
portrait must have lied! No woman with that much fat on her neck
could really love! I adore Amiel and am fond of Pepys, although I wish
he had left out about a ton of that venison pasty which his
"she-cozen" was usually preparing for his entertainment. It always
gets in your line of vision, somehow, whenever you are craning your
neck to catch a glimpse of that naughty but nice Charlie Stuart!
Then there was a girl in _Pendennis_ who kept a book of
heart-outpourings and called it "Mes Larmes." And my Lord Byron's dear
friend, Lady Blessington, called hers "My Night Book."
Well, mine is not going to be a night book, for that is not my
favorite time for mental surveying. I am still a regular lizard in my
love for the sunshine, and, if the prospect sounds alluring, I'll
promise that much of this book shall be written in the clear light of
day. A good part of my other diary was written up in the old pear tree
by the orchard gate, but now I am grown up, so, of course--
"Mes Larmes" would be even worse for a title than the one I have just
mentioned. Some tears will, of course, be mixed in to make the
rainbows of happiness shine through, but I fancy that mine will be
principally a record of work and play. Work that is play and play
that is work, mother says, as I sit on the shady porch in the mornings
working flowers on my shirt-waist front, and spend the afternoons
playing tennis in the hot sun. Work and play, then, for the present;
later, maybe, smiles and sighs; while a long, long way in the future,
perhaps on the last few pages, there _may_ be--shall I say it? No, I
am not well enough acquainted with you yet.
Although I have kept back this one little thought from you in the
above, I promise that in the narration of all things which have
actually happened this journal is going to be unexpurgated! First, I
love truth; and I think that a whole truth is nearly always better
than a half. For instance, d----n in print always looked worse to me
than damn. Then, in the diaries and love-letters I have mentioned
above, I have often found that at the very places where matters were
getting _so_ interesting you straighten up somewhat and begin to
breathe very softly, the narrative breaks suddenly into a row of
beastly little dots--and you are left to imagine what you will! Maybe
the truth would not have been half so bad as your imaginings--maybe it
would have been much worse. It all depends upon the condition of your
circulation!
For my part, I like a book to tell the whole truth about what it
starts out to tell; yet this does not mean that every detail is to be
described, even to setting forth whether the heroine wears
hose-supporters or round garters. Now, in case this journal _should_
be secreted in the attic and found years hence by a mixed audience
which is inclined to take offense at my mention of garters, I shall
say simply, "Evil to him who evil thinketh."
So I am going to have you for my confidential friend and adviser. I
say adviser advisedly, for I know of nothing which preaches a better
sermon sometimes than for a person to look over certain back pages of
his diary; especially _her_ diary.
When I am wicked enough to make your leaves curl up in horror, all you
can do is to listen to my story and not look at me as if you thought I
needed the prayers of the congregation. People who pray don't talk
about it anyway! And, if by chance, my right hand should do something
handsome that it is fairly itching to tell about we can recite it all
to you, knowing that you will never let it come to the ears of my left
hand.
Good I may occasionally be; wicked I shall certainly be, for are not
we all born in iniquity? But I hope that in after years when I read
over these pages I shall not discover that it takes a sextant, a
compass and an alarm clock to find out where my heart is!