“This is from Mary Carman, who is in Portland,” said the mother of the
Superior Woman, looking up from the reading of a letter, as her daughter
came in from the garden.
“Indeed,” carelessly responded Miss Evebrook.
“Yes, it’s chiefly about Will.”
“Oh, is it? Well, read it then, dear. I’m interested in Will Carman,
because of Alice Winthrop.”
“I had hoped, Ethel, at one time that you would have been interested in
him for his own sake. However, this is what she writes:
“I came here chiefly to rid myself of a melancholy mood which has
taken possession of me lately, and also because I cannot bear to see
my boy so changed towards me, owing to his infatuation for Alice
Winthrop. It is incomprehensible to me how a son of mine can find any
pleasure whatever in the society of such a girl. I have traced her
history, and find that she is not only uneducated in the ordinary
sense, but her environment, from childhood up, has been the sordid and
demoralizing one of extreme poverty and ignorance. This girl, Alice,
entered a law office at the age of fourteen, supposedly to do the work
of an office boy. Now, after seven years in business, through the
friendship and influence of men far above her socially, she holds the
position of private secretary to the most influential man in
Washington—a position which by rights belongs only to a well-educated
young woman of good family. Many such applied. I myself sought to have
Jane Walker appointed. Is it not disheartening to our woman’s cause to
be compelled to realize that girls such as this one can win men over
to be their friends and lovers, when there are so many splendid young
women who have been carefully trained to be companions and comrades of
educated men?”
“Pardon me, mother,” interrupted Miss Evebrook, “but I have heard
enough. Mrs. Carman is your friend and a well-meaning woman sometimes;
but a woman suffragist, in the true sense, she certainly is not. Mark my
words: If any young man had accomplished for himself what Alice Winthrop
has accomplished, Mrs. Carman could not have said enough in his praise.
It is women such as Alice Winthrop who, in spite of every drawback, have
raised themselves to the level of those who have had every advantage,
who are the pride and glory of America. There are thousands of them, all
over this land: women who have been of service to others all their years
and who have graduated from the university of life with honor. Women
such as I, who are called the Superior Women of America, are after all
nothing but schoolgirls in comparison.”
Mrs. Evebrook eyed her daughter mutinously. “I don’t see why you should
feel like that,” said she. “Alice is a dear bright child, and it is
prejudice engendered by Mary Carman’s disappointment about you and Will
which is the real cause of poor Mary’s bitterness towards her; but to my
mind, Alice does not compare with my daughter. She would be frightened
to death if she had to make a speech.”
“You foolish mother!” rallied Miss Evebrook. “To stand upon a platform
at woman suffrage meetings and exploit myself is certainly a great
recompense to you and father for all the sacrifices you have made in my
behalf. But since it pleases you, I do it with pleasure even on the
nights when my beau should ‘come a courting.’”
“There is many a one who would like to come, Ethel. You’re the
handsomest girl in this Western town—and you know it.”
“Stop that, mother. You know very well I have set my mind upon having
ten years’ freedom; ten years in which to love, live, suffer, see the
world, and learn about men (not schoolboys) before I choose one.”
“Alice Winthrop is the same age as you are, and looks like a child
beside you.”
“Physically, maybe; but her heart and mind are better developed. She has
been out in the world all her life, I only a few months.”
“Your lecture last week on ‘The Opposite Sex’ was splendid.”
“Of course. I have studied one hundred books on the subject and attended
fifty lectures. All that was necessary was to repeat in an original
manner what was not by any means original.”
Miss Evebrook went over to a desk and took a paper therefrom.
“This,” said she, “is what Alice has written me in reply to my note
suggesting that she attend next week the suffrage meeting, and give some
of the experiences of her business career. The object I had in view when
I requested the relation of her experiences was to use them as
illustrations of the suppression and oppression of women by men. Strange
to say, Alice and I have never conversed on this particular subject. If
we had I would not have made this request of her, nor written her as I
did. Listen:
“I should dearly love to please you, but I am afraid that my
experiences, if related, would not help the cause. It may be, as you
say, that men prevent women from rising to their level; but if there
are such men, I have not met them. Ever since, when a little girl, I
walked into a law office and asked for work, and the senior member
kindly looked me over through his spectacles and inquired if I thought
I could learn to index books, and the junior member glanced under my
hat and said: “This is a pretty little girl and we must be pretty to
her,” I have loved and respected the men amongst whom I have worked
and wherever I have worked. I may have been exceptionally fortunate,
but I know this: the men for whom I have worked and amongst whom I
have spent my life, whether they have been business or professional
men, students or great lawyers and politicians, all alike have upheld
me, inspired me, advised me, taught me, given me a broad outlook upon
life for a woman; interested me in themselves and in their work. As to
corrupting my mind and my morals, as you say so many men do, when they
have young and innocent girls to deal with: As a woman I look back
over my years spent amongst business and professional men, and see
myself, as I was at first, an impressionable, ignorant little girl,
born a Bohemian, easy to lead and easy to win, but borne aloft and
morally supported by the goodness of my brother men, the men amongst
whom I worked. That is why, dear Ethel, you will have to forgive me,
because I cannot carry out your design, and help your work, as
otherwise I would like to do.”
“That, mother,” declared Miss Evebrook, “answers all Mrs. Carman’s
insinuations, and should make her ashamed of herself. Can any one know
the sentiments which little Alice entertains toward men, and wonder at
her winning out as she has?”
Mrs. Evebrook was about to make reply, when her glance happening to
stray out of the window, she noticed a pink parasol.
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance!” she ejaculated, while her daughter went to the
door and invited in the owner of the pink parasol, who was seated in a
veranda rocker calmly writing in a note-book.
“I’m so sorry that we did not hear your ring, Mrs. Spring Fragrance,”
said she.
“There is no necessity for you to sorrow,” replied the little Chinese
woman. “I did not expect you to hear a ring which rang not. I failed to
pull the bell.”
“You forgot, I suppose,” suggested Ethel Evebrook.
“Is it wise to tell secrets?” ingenuously inquired Mrs. Spring
Fragrance.
“Yes, to your friends. Oh, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, you are _so_
refreshing.”
“I have pleasure, then, in confiding to you. I have an ambition to
accomplish an immortal book about the Americans, and the conversation I
heard through the window was so interesting to me that I thought I would
take some of it down for my book before I intruded myself. With your
kind permission I will translate for your correction.”
“I shall be delighted—honored,” said Miss Evebrook, her cheeks glowing
and her laugh rippling, “if you will promise me, that you will also
translate for our friend, Mrs. Carman.”
“Ah, yes, poor Mrs. Carman! My heart is so sad for her,” murmured the
little Chinese woman.
V
When the mother of Will Carman returned from Portland, the first person
upon whom she called was Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Having lived in China
while her late husband was in the customs service there, Mrs. Carman’s
prejudices did not extend to the Chinese, and ever since the Spring
Fragrances had become the occupants of the villa beside the Carmans,
there had been social good feeling between the American and Chinese
families. Indeed, Mrs. Carman was wont to declare that amongst all her
acquaintances there was not one more congenial and interesting than
little Mrs. Spring Fragrance. So after she had sipped a cup of delicious
tea, tasted some piquant candied limes, and told Mrs. Spring Fragrance
all about her visit to the Oregon city and the Chinese people she had
met there, she reverted to a personal trouble confided to Mrs. Spring
Fragrance some months before and dwelt upon it for more than half an
hour. Then she checked herself and gazed at Mrs. Spring Fragrance in
surprise. Hitherto she had found the little Chinese woman sympathetic
and consoling. Chinese ideas of filial duty chimed in with her own. But
today Mrs. Spring Fragrance seemed strangely uninterested and
unresponsive.
“Perhaps,” gently suggested the American woman, who was nothing if not
sensitive, “you have some trouble yourself. If so, my dear, tell me all
about it.”
“Oh, no!” answered Mrs. Spring Fragrance brightly. “I have no troubles
to tell; but all the while I am thinking about the book I am writing.”
“A book!”
“Yes, a book about Americans, an immortal book.”
“My dear Mrs. Spring Fragrance!” exclaimed her visitor in amazement.
“The American woman writes books about the Chinese. Why not a Chinese
woman write books about the Americans?”
“I see what you mean. Why, yes, of course. What an original idea!”
“Yes, I think that is what it is. My book I shall take from the words of
others.”
“What do you mean, my dear?”
“I listen to what is said, I apprehend, I write it down. Let me
illustrate by the ‘Inferior Woman’ subject. The Inferior Woman is most
interesting to me because you have told me that your son is in much love
with her. My husband advised me to learn about the Inferior Woman from
the Superior Woman. I go to see the Superior Woman. I sit on the veranda
of the Superior Woman’s house. I listen to her converse with her mother
about the Inferior Woman. With the speed of flames I write down all I
hear. When I enter the house the Superior Woman advises me that what I
write is correct. May I read to you?”
“I shall be pleased to hear what you have written; but I do not think
you were wise in your choice of subject,” returned Mrs. Carman somewhat
primly.
“I am sorry I am not wise. Perhaps I had better not read?” said Mrs.
Spring Fragrance with humility.
“Yes, yes, do, please.”
There was eagerness in Mrs. Carman’s voice. What could Ethel Evebrook
have to say about that girl!
When Mrs. Spring Fragrance had finished reading, she looked up into the
face of her American friend—a face in which there was nothing now but
tenderness.
“Mrs. Mary Carman,” said she, “you are so good as to admire my husband
because he is what the Americans call ‘a man who has made himself.’ Why
then do you not admire the Inferior Woman who is a woman who has made
herself?”
“I think I do,” said Mrs. Carman slowly.