and adoring husband; nevertheless her soul was harassed at times by his
philosophy of live and let live, by his principles against locked doors
and private property. She was merely selfless. Often when one of her
children was feverish she went to the kitchen pump for water so that it
might be cooler and fresher for parched lips. Once, groping her way on
such an errand, she stumbled over a tramp who had taken advantage of the
unlatched door and lay sprawled on the floor. She rushed back to arouse
father, telling him he must put the man out. But he only turned over on
his side and muttered, “Oh, let him alone. The poor divil needs sleep
like the rest of us.”
Another night mother was awakened by noises outside. “Father,” she
called, “there’s somebody at the hencoop!”
“What makes you think so?” he answered sleepily.
“I hear the chickens. They wouldn’t make a noise unless somebody was in
there. Get up!”
Obediently father put on his trousers and coat; not even before thieves
would he appear in his nightshirt out of his bedroom. He proceeded to
the kitchen door, and, holding a lamp on high, addressed the two men,
one of whom was handing out chickens to the other, “Hey, you, there!
What do you mean by coming to a man’s house in the middle of the night
and shtealing his chickens? What kind of citizens are you?”
This seemed to mother no time for a moral lecture. “Why don’t you go
out?” she prodded.
“It’s raining.”
“Give me the lamp!” she demanded, exasperated.
She started towards our nearest neighbor, splashing through the little
brook, getting her feet wet, calling, “Some one’s in our chicken house!”
Our neighbor armed himself and came running. A man with a gun sent the
marauders scurrying up the hill. That was mother’s philosophy. I think
father fell in her estimation for a few days after this. She expected
him to be the guardian of the home, but he was never that. His liberal
views were so well known that our house was marked with the tramp’s
patrin of the first degree. “Always get something here. Never be turned
away.” If it happened to be pay day they could count on a quarter as
well as a meal.
One particular evening we were expecting father home, his pockets
bulging with the money from his latest commission, but by nightfall he
had not yet returned. When mother heard a rap at the door she went
eagerly to open it. Two ragged strangers were standing there.
“Is the boss in?”
“No, but I’m looking for him any minute.”
“We want something to eat.”
With no more ceremony than was customary among the knights of the open
road they pushed through the door and made for the kitchen, plainly
knowing their way about.
“How dare you come into this house!” exclaimed mother indignantly.
“Toss! Beauty!” she cried sharply. The fear in her voice brought the
dogs lunging downstairs with fangs bared and hackles bristling. They
leaped at the backs of the uninvited guests.
Father came in a few hours later. The door was swinging wide, the snow
was blowing in. Torn scraps of clothing, spots of blood were about, and
mother was unconscious on the floor. He poured whiskey down her throat.
“It was only good whiskey that brought you to,” he often said
afterwards, recalling his alarm. He used the same remedy to pull her
through the ensuing six weeks of pneumonia. But he had been so
thoroughly worried that his generosity towards tramps lessened and his
largesse was curtailed.
After this illness mother coughed more than ever and it was evident the
pines were not helping her. Father decided to move; the house was so
obviously marked and he had to be gone so much he thought it unsafe for
us to live alone so far away.
_Chapter Three_
BOOKS ARE THE COMPASSES
So we moved into town, still on the western hills. It marked the
beginning of my adolescence, and such breaks are always disturbing. In
the house in the woods we had all been children together, but now some
of us were growing up.
Nevertheless, there were always smaller ones to be put to bed, to be
rocked to sleep; there were feet and knees to be scrubbed and hands to
be washed. Although we had more space, home study sometimes seemed to me
impossible. The living room was usually occupied by the older members of
the family, and the bedrooms were cold. I kept up in my lessons, but it
was simply because I enjoyed them.
In most schools teachers and pupils then were natural enemies, and the
one I had in the eighth grade was particularly adept at arousing
antagonism. She apparently disliked her job and the youngsters under her
care as much as we hated her. Sarcasm was both her defense and weapon of
attack. One day in mid-June I was delayed in getting off for school.
Well aware that being tardy was a heinous crime, I hurried, pulling and
tugging at my first pair of kid gloves, which Mary had just given me.
But the bell had rung two minutes before I walked into the room, flushed
and out of breath.
The teacher had already begun the class. She looked up at the
interruption. “Well, well, Miss Higgins, so your ladyship has arrived at
last! Ah, a new pair of gloves! I wonder that she even deigns to come to
school at all.”
Giggles rippled around me as I went into the cloakroom and laid down my
hat and gloves. I came back, praying the teacher would pay no more
attention to me, but as I walked painfully to my seat she continued
repeating with variations her mean comments. Even when I sat down she
did not stop. I tried to think of something else, tried not to listen,
tried to smile with the others. I endured it as long as I could, then
took out my books, pyramiding arithmetic, grammar, and speller, strapped
them up, rose, and left.
Mother was amazed when I burst in on her. “I will never go back to that
school again!” I exclaimed dramatically. “I have finished forever! I’ll
go to jail, I’ll work, I’ll starve, I’ll die! But back to that school
and teacher I will never go!”
As older brothers and sisters drifted home in the evening, they were as
horrified as mother. “But you have only two weeks more,” they
expostulated.
“I don’t care if it’s only an hour. I will not go back!”
When it became obvious that I would stick to my point, mother seemed
glad to have me to help her. I was thorough and strong and could get
through a surprising amount of work in no time. But the rest of the
family was seriously alarmed. The next few months were filled with
questions I could not answer. “What can you ever be without an
education?” “Are you equipped to earn a living?” “Is factory life a
pleasant prospect? If you don’t go back to school, you’ll surely end
there.”
“All right. I’ll go to work!” I announced defiantly. Work, even in the
factory, meant money, and money meant independence. I had no rebuttal to
their arguments; I was acting on an impulse that transcended reason, and
must have recognized that any explanation as to my momentous decision
would sound foolish.
Then suddenly father, mother, my second older sister Nan, and Mary, who
had been summoned to a family council, tried other tactics. I was sent
for two weeks to Chautauqua, there to take courses, hear lectures from
prominent speakers, listen to music. This was designed to stimulate my
interest in education and dispel any idea I might have of getting a job.
My impulse had been misconstrued. I was not rebelling against education
as such, but only against that particular school and that particular
teacher. When fall drew near and the next session was at hand I was
still reiterating that I would not go back, although I still had no
answer to Nan’s repeated, “What are you going to do?”
Nan was perhaps the most inspiring of all my brothers and sisters. The
exact contrary to father, she wanted us all to conform and was in tears
if we did not. To her, failure in this respect showed a lack of
breeding. Yet even more important than conformity was knowledge, which
was the basis for all true culture. She herself wanted to write, and had
received prizes for stories from _St. Nicholas_ and the _Youth’s
Companion_. But the family was too dependent upon the earnings of the
older girls, and she was obliged to postpone college and her equally
ardent desire to study sculpture. She became a translator of French and
German until these aspirations could be fulfilled.
At the time of my mutiny Nan was especially disturbed. “You won’t be
able to get anywhere without an education,” she stated firmly. She and
Mary, joining forces, together looked for a school, reasonable enough
for their purses, but good enough academically to prepare me for
Cornell. Private education was not so expensive as today, and families
of moderate means could afford it. My sisters selected Claverack College
and Hudson River Institute, about three miles from the town of Hudson in
the Catskill Mountains. Here, in one of the oldest coeducational
institutions in the country, the Methodist farmers of the Dutch valley
enrolled their sons and daughters; unfortunately it is now gone and with
it the healthy spirit it typified. One sister paid my tuition and the
other bought my books and clothes; for my board and room I was to work.
Going away to school was epochal in my life. The self-contained family
group was suddenly multiplied to five hundred strangers, all living and
studying under one roof. The girls’ dormitory was at one end, the boys’
at the other, but we shared the same dining room and sat together in
classes; occasionally a boy could call on a girl in the reception hall
if a teacher were present. I liked best the attitude of the teachers;
they were not so much policemen as companions and friends, and their
instruction was more individual and stimulating than at Corning.
I did not have money to do things the other girls did—go off for
week-ends or house-parties—but waiting on table or washing dishes did
not set me apart. The work was far easier than at home, and a girl was
pretty well praised for doing her share. At first the students all
appeared to me uninteresting and lacking in initiative. I never found
the same imaginative quality I was used to in my family, but as certain
ones began to stand out I discovered they had personalities of their
own.
I had been at Claverack only a few days and was still feeling homesick
when in the hall one morning I encountered the most beautiful creature I
had ever seen. Long hair flying from her shoulders, she was so slender
and wraithlike that she seemed unreal. I have never since been so moved
by human loveliness as I was by Esther’s. I cried at night because I
sensed it was something I could not reach. Even her clothes were unlike
all others. Many girls envied their taste and quality, but I knew they
belonged to her of right. Of every book I had read she was the heroine
come alive.
Worlds apart though we were in tradition, looks, behavior, experience,
Esther and I had the same romantic outlook. Having aspirations for the
theater, she remained only one year and then left to attend Charles
Frohman’s dramatic school. I had been too overpowered by my admiration
for her to be happy in it, and it kept me from caring particularly about
anyone else. Nevertheless, I am convinced that in any interchange of
affection the balance is unequal; one must give and the other be able to
receive. My second year I was the recipient of devotion from a younger
girl similar to that I had showered upon Esther. The loyalty and praise
of Amelia Stuart, my laughing friend, fed all the empty spaces in my
heart. She was gay and clever, a Methodist by upbringing but not by
conviction. Each Sunday afternoon, given over to the reading of the
Bible, we received permission to study together in my room, and there
occupied ourselves dutifully, I in mending and darning, and she reading
aloud, but interspersing solemn passages with ridiculous exaggerations.
What was intended to be a serious exercise of the spirit was turned into
merriment.
My friendship with these two girls has been interrupted, but never
broken.
Very shortly after my arrival at Claverack I had been infected by that
indefinable, nebulous quality called school spirit, and before long was
happily in the thick of activities. Assembly was held in the chapel
every morning, during which we all in turn had to render small speeches
and essays, or recite selections of poetry. I had a vivid feeling of how
things should be said, putting more dramatic fervor into certain lines
than my limited experience of the theater would seem to explain, and on
this account the elocution teacher encouraged me to have faith in my
talents.
Every girl, I suppose, at some time or other wants to be an actress.
Mary had taken me to the theater now and then, once when Maude Adams was
playing Juliet to John Drew’s Romeo, and had gone to some pains to
explain to me the difference between artistes like Mary Anderson or
Julia Marlowe and mere beauty as such. She would not have been pleased
at my seeing Lillian Russell, which I did during a Christmas holiday in
New York; Lillian Russell was too glamorous and, furthermore, she was
said to have accepted jewelry from men.
One vacation I announced to my family that I was thinking of a stage
career. Disapproval was evident on all sides. Father pooh-poohed; Mary
alone held out hope. She said I had ability and should go to dramatic
school in New York as soon as I had finished Claverack. She would apply
immediately to Charles Frohman to have me understudy Maude Adams, whom I
at least was said to resemble physically—small and with the same
abundant red-brown hair. Lacking good features I took pride only in my
thick, long braids. I used to decorate them with ribbons and admire the
effect in the mirror.
The application was made; I was photographed in various poses with and
without hats. A return letter from the school management came, enclosing
a form to be filled in with name, address, age, height, weight, color of
hair, eyes, and skin.
But additional data were required as to the exact length of the legs,
both right and left, as well as measurements of ankle, calf, knee, and
thigh. I knew my proportions in a general way. Those were the days when
every pack of cigarettes carried a bonus in the shape of a pictured
actress, plump and well-formed. In the gymnasium the girls had compared
sizes with these beauties. But to see such personal information go
coldly down on paper to be sent off to strange men was unthinkable. I
had expected to have to account for the quality of my voice, for my
ability to sing, to play, for grace, agility, character, and morals.
Since I could not see what legs had to do with being a second Maude
Adams, I did not fill in the printed form nor send the photographs, but
just put them all away, and turned to other fields where something
beside legs was to count.
Chapel never bored me. I had come to dislike ritual in many of the
churches I had visited—kneeling for prayer, sitting for instruction,
standing for praise. But in a Methodist chapel anyone could get up and
express a conviction. Young sprouts here were thinking and discussing
the Bible, religion, and politics. Should the individual be submerged in
the state? If you had a right to free thought as an individual, should
you give it up to the church?
We scribbled during study periods, debated in the evenings. Without
always digesting them but with great positiveness I carried over many of
the opinions I had heard expounded at home. To most of the boys and
girls those Saturday mornings when the more ambitious efforts were
offered represented genuine torture. They stuttered and stammered
painfully. I was just as nervous—more so probably. Nevertheless, I was
so ardent for suffrage, for anything which would “emancipate” women and
humanity, that I was eager to proclaim theories of my own.
Father was still the spring from which I drank, and I sent long letters
home, getting in reply still longer ones, filled with ammunition about
the historical background of the importance of women—Helen of Troy,
Ruth, Cleopatra, Poppaea, famous queens, women authors and poets.
When news spread that I was to present my essay, “Women’s Rights,” the
boys, following the male attitude which most people have forgotten but
which every suffragette well remembers, jeered and drew cartoons of
women wearing trousers, stiff collars, and smoking huge cigars.
Undeterred, I was spurred on to think up new arguments. I studied and
wrote as never before, stealing away to the cemetery and standing on the
monuments over the graves. Each day in the quiet of the dead I repeated
and repeated that speech out loud. What an essay it was!
“Votes for Women” banners were not yet flying, and this early faint
bleating of mine aroused little enthusiasm. I turned then to an equally
stern subject. The other students had automatically accepted the cause
of solid money. I espoused free silver. At Chautauqua I had heard echoes
of those first notes sounded by Bryan for the working classes. The
spirit of humanitarianism in industry had been growing and swelling, but
it was still deep buried. I believe any great concept must be present in
the mass consciousness before any one figure can tap it and set it free
on its irresistible way.
I had not seen the “Boy Orator of the Platte,” but the country was
ringing with his words, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of
gold.” These rich and sonorous phrases made me realize the importance of
clothing ideas in fine language. Far more, however, they struck a solemn
chord within me. I, also, in an obscure and unformed way, wanted to help
grasp Utopia from the skies and plant it on earth. But what to do and
where to start I did not know.
Due to my “advanced ideas,” for a time, at least, I am sorry to say, it
was chiefly the grinds with whom I “walked in Lovers’ Lane,” nodding
wisely and answering their earnest aspirations with profound advice. But
this did not last. Soon I was going through the usual boy and girl
romances; each season brought a new one. I took none of them very
seriously, but adroitly combined flirtatiousness with the conviction
that marriage was something towards which I must develop. Therefore I
turned the vague and tentative suggestions of my juvenile beaus by
saying, “I would never think of jumping into marriage without definite
preparation and study of its responsibilities.” Practically no women
then went into professions; matrimony was the only way out. It seems
ages ago.
Various pranks occurred at Claverack, such as taking walks with boys out
of bounds and going to forbidden places for tea. Towards the end of my
last year I thought up the idea that several of us should slip out
through the window and down to the village dance hall where our special
admirers would meet us. About eleven-thirty, in the midst of the gayety,
in walked our principal, Mr. Flack, together with the preceptress who
had come for the “ladies.” We were all marched back to school, uneasy
but silent.
The next morning I received a special invitation to call at The Office.
I entered. Mr. Flack, a small, slight, serious, student type of man,
with a large head and high brow, was standing with his back to me. I sat
down. He gave me no greeting but kept on at his books. To all
appearances he did not know I was there. Then, without looking around,
he said, “Miss Higgins, don’t you feel rather ashamed of yourself for
getting those girls into trouble last night, by taking them out and
making them break the rules? They may even have to be sent home.”
Although surprised that he should have known I was the one responsible,
I could not deny it, but it flashed across my mind at first that someone
must have told him. He went on with rapid flow, almost as though talking
to himself, “I’ve watched you ever since you came and I don’t need to be
told that you must have been the ringleader. Again and again I’ve
noticed your influence over others. I want to call your attention to
this, because I know you’re going to use it in the future. You must make
your choice—whether to get yourself and others into difficulty, or else
guide yourself and others into constructive activities which will do you
and them credit.”
I do not quite recall what else he said, but I have never forgotten
going out of his room that day. This could not exactly be called a
turning point in my life, but from then on I realized more strongly than
before that there was a something within myself which could and should
be kept under my control and direction.
Long afterwards I wrote to thank Mr. Flack for his wisdom in offering
guidance instead of harsh discipline. He died a few years later, and I
was glad I had been able to place a rose in his hand rather than on his
grave.
I spent three happy years at Claverack. The following season I decided
to try my hand at teaching, then a lady-like thing to do. A position was
open to me in the first grade of a new public school in southern New
Jersey. The majority of the pupils—Poles, Hungarians, Swedes—could not
speak English. In they came regularly. I was beside myself to know what
to do with eighty-four children who could not understand a word I said.
I loved those small, black-haired and tow-headed urchins who became
bored with sitting and, on their own, began stunts to entertain
themselves. But I was so tired at the end of the day that I often lay
down before dressing for dinner and awakened the next morning barely in
time to start the routine. In very short order I became aware of the
fact that teaching was not merely a job, it was a profession, and
training was necessary if you were to do it well. I was not suited by
temperament, and therefore had no right to this vocation. I had been
struggling for only a brief while when father summoned me home to nurse
mother.
She was weak and pale and the high red spots on her cheek bones stood
out startlingly against her white face. Although she was now spitting
blood when she coughed we still expected her to live on forever. She had
been ill so long; this was just another attack among many. Father
carried her from room to room, and tried desperately to devise little
comforts. We shut the doors and windows to keep out any breath of the
raw March air, and in the stuffy atmosphere we toiled over her bed.
In an effort to be more efficient in caring for mother I tried to find
out something about consumption by borrowing medical books from the
library of the local doctor, who was a friend of the family, and in
doing this became so interested in medicine that I decided definitely I
would study to be an M.D. When I went back for more volumes and
announced my decision the doctor gave them to me, but smiled tolerantly,
“You’ll probably get over it.”
I had been closely confined for a long time when I was invited to
Buffalo for the Easter holidays to meet again one of the boys by whom I
had been beaued at Claverack. Mother insisted that I needed a vacation.
Mary and Nan were both there; I could stay with them, and we planned a
pleasant trip to Niagara Falls for the day.
With me out of the way mother sent off the little children one by one on
some pretext or another. She had more difficulty with father. The fire
bricks in the stove had split and she told him he must go to town and
get new ones. Much against his will, because he was vaguely unquiet, he
started for the foundry. He had left only because mother seemed to want
it so much, but when he had walked a few blocks, he found he could not
go on. For some Celtic mystic reason of his own he turned abruptly
around and came back to the house. Mother was gasping in death. All the
family hated scenes, she most of all. She had known she was to die and
wanted to be alone.
It was a folk superstition that a consumptive who survived through the
month of March would live until November. Mother died on the
thirty-first of the month, leaving father desolate and inconsolable. I
came flying home. The house was silent and he hardly spoke. Suddenly the
stillness of the night was broken by a wailing and Toss was found with
his paws on the coffin, mourning and howling—the most poignant and
agonizing sound I had ever heard.
I had to take mother’s place—manage the finances, order the meals, pay
the debts. There was nothing left for my clothing nor for any outside
diversions. All that could be squeezed out by making this or that do had
to go for shoes or necessities for the younger brothers. Mend, patch,
sew as you would, there was a limit to the endurance of trousers, and
new ones had to be purchased.