The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

C >> Charlotte Perkins Gilman >> The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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It is easy to see the origin of this deification of the doorstep. It is
not so easy to justify its persistence now that long years of knowledge
show us the great Door.

The Door of Life is Motherhood. She is the gate of entrance. Her work
is the great work as moulder and builder. She carries in her the Life
Power which this absurd infant is supposed to typify; and her love is
greater than his, even as a wise, strong mother is greater than a little
child.

Consider the imperative law that demands motherhood, that gives
motherhood, that holds motherhood to its great continuing task; where
short pleasure is followed by long discomfort crowned with pain; where
even the rich achievement of new-made life is but the beginning of years
of labor and care. Here is the life force. Here is power and passion.
Not the irritable, transient impulse, however mighty, but the staying
power, the passion that endures, the spirit which masters weakness,
slays selfishness, holds its ministrant to a lifelong task.

This is not appetite, hunger, desire. Desire may lead to it, and
usefully. Desire is the torchbearer, Motherhood is the Way.

Give Baby Love his due. He is not evil; he is good. He is a joy
forever. He is vitally necessary in the scheme of things. Happy are
they who in the real great work of life can carry with them this angel
visitant, fluttering free along their path, now close and sweet, now
smiling mischievously at a distance, yet returning ever.

But with all that can be said of him he is out of place as chief deity
in this high temple. Let a little shrine be made at the gate outside
the door. Let him smile there and take his tribute of red roses. But
when we put the shoes from off our feet and enter, we should see before
us, tall and grave, glorious in strong beauty, majestic in her amplitude
of power, the Goddess Motherhood.

Such love should shine from her deep eyes that children would crowd to
that temple and feel at home; learning to understand a little of what
had brought them there. Such beauty in this body of great womanhood that
men would worship as for long they have worshipped her of Melos. Such
high pride that girls, gazing, would feel strong to meet and bear their
splendid task. And such power--such living, overmastering power that
man, woman and child alike should bow in honor and rise in strength.

Then will Love be truly worshipped.

ARREARS

Our gratitude goes up in smoke,
In incense smoke of prayer;
We thank the Underlying Love,
The Overarching Care--
We do not thank the living men
Who make our lives so fair.

For long insolvent centuries
We have been clothed and fed,
By the spared captive, spared for once,
By inches slain instead;
He gave his service and is gone;
Unthanked, unpaid, and dead.

His labor built the world we love;
Our highest flights to-day
Rest on the service of the past,
Which we can never pay;
A long repudiated debt
Blackens our upward way.

Our fingers owed his fathers dead--
Disgrace beyond repair!
No late remorse, no new-found shame
Can save our honor there:
But we can now begin to pay
The starved and stunted heir!

We thank the Power above for all--
Gladly we do, and should.
But might we not save out a part
Of our large gratitude,
And give it to the power on earth--
Where it will do some good?

THREE THANKSGIVINGS

Andrew's letter and Jean's letter were in Mrs. Morrison's lap. She had
read them both, and sat looking at them with a varying sort of smile,
now motherly and now unmotherly.

"You belong with me," Andrew wrote. "It is not right that Jean's
husband should support my mother. I can do it easily now. You shall
have a good room and every comfort. The old house will let for enough
to give you quite a little income of your own, or it can be sold and I
will invest the money where you'll get a deal more out of it. It is not
right that you should live alone there. Sally is old and liable to
accident. I am anxious about you. Come on for Thanksgiving--and come
to stay. Here is the money to come with. You know I want you. Annie
joins me in sending love. ANDREW."

Mrs. Morrison read it all through again, and laid it down with her
quiet, twinkling smile. Then she read Jean's.

"Now, mother, you've got to come to us for Thanksgiving this year. Just
think! You haven't seen baby since he was three months old! And have
never seen the twins. You won't know him--he's such a splendid big boy
now. Joe says for you to come, of course. And, mother, why won't you
come and live with us? Joe wants you, too. There's the little room
upstairs; it's not very big, but we can put in a Franklin stove for you
and make you pretty comfortable. Joe says he should think you ought to
sell that white elephant of a place. He says he could put the money
into his store and pay you good interest. I wish you would, mother.
We'd just love to have you here. You'd be such a comfort to me, and
such a help with the babies. And Joe just loves you. Do come now, and
stay with us. Here is the money for the trip.--Your affectionate
daughter, JEANNIE."

Mrs. Morrison laid this beside the other, folded both, and placed them
in their respective envelopes, then in their several well-filled
pigeon-holes in her big, old-fashioned desk. She turned and paced
slowly up and down the long parlor, a tall woman, commanding of aspect,
yet of a winningly attractive manner, erect and light-footed, still
imposingly handsome.

It was now November, the last lingering boarder was long since gone, and
a quiet winter lay before her. She was alone, but for Sally; and she
smiled at Andrew's cautious expression, "liable to accident." He could
not say "feeble" or "ailing," Sally being a colored lady of changeless
aspect and incessant activity.

Mrs. Morrison was alone, and while living in the Welcome House she was
never unhappy. Her father had built it, she was born there, she grew up
playing on the broad green lawns in front, and in the acre of garden
behind. It was the finest house in the village, and she then thought it
the finest in the world.

Even after living with her father at Washington and abroad, after
visiting hall, castle and palace, she still found the Welcome House
beautiful and impressive.

If she kept on taking boarders she could live the year through, and pay
interest, but not principal, on her little mortgage. This had been the
one possible and necessary thing while the children were there, though
it was a business she hated.

But her youthful experience in diplomatic circles, and the years of
practical management in church affairs, enabled her to bear it with
patience and success. The boarders often confided to one another, as
they chatted and tatted on the long piazza, that Mrs. Morrison was
"certainly very refined."

Now Sally whisked in cheerfully, announcing supper, and Mrs. Morrison
went out to her great silver tea-tray at the lit end of the long, dark
mahogany table, with as much dignity as if twenty titled guests were
before her.

Afterward Mr. Butts called. He came early in the evening, with his
usual air of determination and a somewhat unusual spruceness. Mr. Peter
Butts was a florid, blonde person, a little stout, a little pompous,
sturdy and immovable in the attitude of a self-made man. He had been a
poor boy when she was a rich girl; and it gratified him much to
realize--and to call upon her to realize--that their positions had
changed. He meant no unkindness, his pride was honest and unveiled.
Tact he had none.

She had refused Mr. Butts, almost with laughter, when he proposed to her
in her gay girlhood. She had refused him, more gently, when he proposed
to her in her early widowhood. He had always been her friend, and her
husband's friend, a solid member of the church, and had taken the small
mortgage of the house. She refused to allow him at first, but he was
convincingly frank about it.

"This has nothing to do with my wanting you, Delia Morrison," he said.
"I've always wanted you--and I've always wanted this house, too. You
won't sell, but you've got to mortgage. By and by you can't pay up, and
I'll get it--see? Then maybe you'll take me--to keep the house. Don't
be a fool, Delia. It's a perfectly good investment."

She had taken the loan. She had paid the interest. She would pay the
interest if she had to take boarders all her life. And she would not,
at any price, marry Peter Butts.

He broached the subject again that evening, cheerful and undismayed.
"You might as well come to it, Delia," he said. "Then we could live
right here just the same. You aren't so young as you were, to be sure;
I'm not, either. But you are as good a housekeeper as
ever--better--you've had more experience."

"You are extremely kind, Mr. Butts," said the lady, "but I do not wish
to marry you."

"I know you don't," he said. "You've made that clear. You don't, but I
do. You've had your way and married the minister. He was a good man,
but he's dead. Now you might as well marry me."

"I do not wish to marry again, Mr. Butts; neither you nor anyone."

"Very proper, very proper, Delia," he replied. "It wouldn't look well
if you did--at any rate, if you showed it. But why shouldn't you? The
children are gone now--you can't hold them up against me any more."

"Yes, the children are both settled now, and doing nicely," she
admitted.

"You don't want to go and live with them--either one of them--do you?"
he asked.

"I should prefer to stay here," she answered.

"Exactly! And you can't! You'd rather live here and be a grandee--but
you can't do it. Keepin' house for boarders isn't any better than
keepin' house for me, as I see. You'd much better marry me."

"I should prefer to keep the house without you, Mr. Butts."

"I know you would. But you can't, I tell you. I'd like to know what a
woman of your age can do with a house like this--and no money? You
can't live eternally on hens' eggs and garden truck. That won't pay the
mortgage."

Mrs. Morrison looked at him with her cordial smile, calm and
non-committal. "Perhaps I can manage it," she said.

"That mortgage falls due two years from Thanksgiving, you know."

"Yes--I have not forgotten."

"Well, then, you might just as well marry me now, and save two years of
interest. It'll be my house, either way--but you'll be keepin' it just
the same."

"It is very kind of you, Mr. Butts. I must decline the offer none the
less. I can pay the interest, I am sure. And perhaps--in two years'
time--I can pay the principal. It's not a large sum."

"That depends on how you look at it," said he. "Two thousand dollars is
considerable money for a single woman to raise in two years--_and_
interest."

He went away, as cheerful and determined as ever; and Mrs. Morrison saw
him go with a keen, light in her fine eyes, a more definite line to that
steady, pleasant smile.

Then she went to spend Thanksgiving with Andrew. He was glad to see
her. Annie was glad to see her. They proudly installed her in "her
room," and said she must call it "home" now.

This affectionately offered home was twelve by fifteen, and eight feet
high. It had two windows, one looking at some pale gray clapboards
within reach of a broom, the other giving a view of several small fenced
yards occupied by cats, clothes and children. There was an ailanthus
tree under the window, a lady ailanthus tree. Annie told her how
profusely it bloomed. Mrs. Morrison particularly disliked the smell of
ailanthus flowers. "It doesn't bloom in November," said she to herself.
"I can be thankful for that!"

Andrew's church was very like the church of his father, and Mrs. Andrew
was doing her best to fill the position of minister's wife--doing it
well, too--there was no vacancy for a minister's mother.

Besides, the work she had done so cheerfully to help her husband was not
what she most cared for, after all. She liked the people, she liked to
manage, but she was not strong on doctrine. Even her husband had never
known how far her views differed from his. Mrs. Morrison had never
mentioned what they were.

Andrew's people were very polite to her. She was invited out with them,
waited upon and watched over and set down among the old ladies and
gentlemen--she had never realized so keenly that she was no longer
young. Here nothing recalled her youth, every careful provision
anticipated age. Annie brought her a hot-water bag at night, tucking it
in at the foot of the bed with affectionate care. Mrs. Morrison thanked
her, and subsequently took it out--airing the bed a little before she
got into it. The house seemed very hot to her, after the big, windy
halls at home.

The little dining-room, the little round table with the little round
fern-dish in the middle, the little turkey and the little
carving-set--game-set she would have called it--all made her feel as if
she was looking through the wrong end of an opera-glass.

In Annie's precise efficiency she saw no room for her assistance; no
room in the church, no room in the small, busy town, prosperous and
progressive, and no room in the house. "Not enough to turn round in!"
she said to herself. Annie, who had grown up in a city flat, thought
their little parsonage palatial. Mrs. Morrison grew up in the Welcome
House.

She stayed a week, pleasant and polite, conversational, interested in
all that went on.

"I think your mother is just lovely," said Annie to Andrew.

"Charming woman, your mother," said the leading church member.

"What a delightful old lady your mother is!" said the pretty soprano.

And Andrew was deeply hurt and disappointed when she announced her
determination to stay on for the present in her old home. "Dear boy,"
she said, "you mustn't take it to heart. I love to be with you, of
course, but I love my home, and want to keep it is long as I can. It is
a great pleasure to see you and Annie so well settled, and so happy
together. I am most truly thankful for you."

"My home is open to you whenever you wish to come, mother," said Andrew.
But he was a little angry.

Mrs. Morrison came home as eager as a girl, and opened her own door with
her own key, in spite of Sally's haste.

Two years were before her in which she must find some way to keep
herself and Sally, and to pay two thousand dollars and the interest to
Peter Butts. She considered her assets. There was the house--the white
elephant. It _was_ big--very big. It was profusely furnished. Her
father had entertained lavishly like the Southern-born, hospitable
gentleman he was; and the bedrooms ran in suites--somewhat deteriorated
by the use of boarders, but still numerous and habitable. Boarders--she
abhorred them. They were people from afar, strangers and interlopers.
She went over the place from garret to cellar, from front gate to
backyard fence.

The garden had great possibilities. She was fond of gardening. and
understood it well. She measured and estimated.

"This garden," she finally decided, "with the hens, will feed us two
women and sell enough to pay Sally. If we make plenty of jelly, it may
cover the coal bill, too. As to clothes--I don't need any. They last
admirably. I can manage. I can _live_--but two thousand dollars--_and_
interest!"

In the great attic was more furniture, discarded sets put there when her
extravagant young mother had ordered new ones. And chairs--uncounted
chairs. Senator Welcome used to invite numbers to meet his political
friends--and they had delivered glowing orations in the wide, double
parlors, the impassioned speakers standing on a temporary dais, now in
the cellar; and the enthusiastic listeners disposed more or less
comfortably on these serried rows of "folding chairs," which folded
sometimes, and let down the visitor in scarlet confusion to the floor.

She sighed as she remembered those vivid days and glittering nights.
She used to steal downstairs in her little pink wrapper and listen to
the eloquence. It delighted her young soul to see her father rising on
his toes, coming down sharply on his heels, hammering one hand upon the
other; and then to hear the fusilade of applause.

Here were the chairs, often borrowed for weddings, funerals, and church
affairs, somewhat worn and depleted, but still numerous. She mused upon
them. Chairs--hundreds of chairs. They would sell for very little.

She went through her linen room. A splendid stock in the old days;
always carefully washed by Sally; surviving even the boarders. Plenty
of bedding, plenty of towels, plenty of napkins and tablecloths. "It
would make a good hotel--but I _can't_ have it so--I _can't!_ Besides,
there's no need of another hotel here. The poor little Haskins House is
never full."

The stock in the china closet was more damaged than some other things,
naturally; but she inventoried it with care. The countless cups of
crowded church receptions were especially prominent. Later additions
these, not very costly cups, but numerous, appallingly.

When she had her long list of assets all in order, she sat and studied
it with a clear and daring mind. Hotel--boarding-house--she could think
of nothing else. School! A girls' school! A boarding school! There
was money to be made at that, and fine work done. It was a brilliant
thought at first, and she gave several hours, and much paper and ink, to
its full consideration. But she would need some capital for
advertising; she must engage teachers--adding to her definite
obligation; and to establish it, well, it would require time.

Mr. Butts, obstinate, pertinacious, oppressively affectionate, would
give her no time. He meant to force her to marry him for her own
good--and his. She shrugged her fine shoulders with a little shiver.
Marry Peter Butts! Never! Mrs. Morrison still loved her husband. Some
day she meant to see him again--God willing--and she did not wish to
have to tell him that at fifty she had been driven into marrying Peter
Butts.

Better live with Andrew. Yet when she thought of living with Andrew,
she shivered again. Pushing back her sheets of figures and lists of
personal property, she rose to her full graceful height and began to
walk the floor. There was plenty of floor to walk. She considered,
with a set deep thoughtfulness, the town and the townspeople, the
surrounding country, the hundreds upon hundreds of women whom she
knew--and liked, and who liked her.

It used to be said of Senator Welcome that he had no enemies; and some
people, strangers, maliciously disposed, thought it no credit to his
character. His daughter had no enemies, but no one had ever blamed her
for her unlimited friendliness. In her father's wholesale
entertainments the whole town knew and admired his daughter; in her
husband's popular church she had come to know the women of the
countryside about them. Her mind strayed off to these women, farmers'
wives, comfortably off in a plain way, but starving for companionship,
for occasional stimulus and pleasure. It was one of her joys in her
husband's time to bring together these women--to teach and entertain
them.

Suddenly she stopped short in the middle of the great high-ceiled room,
and drew her head up proudly like a victorious queen. One wide,
triumphant, sweeping glance she cast at the well-loved walls--and went
back to her desk, working swiftly, excitedly, well into the hours of the
night.

*

Presently the little town began to buzz, and the murmur ran far out into
the surrounding country. Sunbonnets wagged over fences; butcher carts
and pedlar's wagon carried the news farther; and ladies visiting found
one topic in a thousand houses.

Mrs. Morrison was going to entertain. Mrs. Morrison had invited the
whole feminine population, it would appear, to meet Mrs. Isabelle Carter
Blake, of Chicago. Even Haddleton had heard of Mrs. Isabelle Carter
Blake. And even Haddleton had nothing but admiration for her.

She was known the world over for her splendid work for children--for the
school children and the working children of the country. Yet she was
known also to have lovingly and wisely reared six children of her
own--and made her husband happy in his home. On top of that she had
lately written a novel, a popular novel, of which everyone was talking;
and on top of that she was an intimate friend of a certain conspicuous
Countess--an Italian.

It was even rumored, by some who knew Mrs. Morrison better than
others--or thought they did--that the Countess was coming, too! No one
had known before that Delia Welcome was a school-mate of Isabel Carter,
and a lifelong friend; and that was ground for talk in itself.

The day arrived, and the guests arrived. They came in hundreds upon
hundreds, and found ample room in the great white house.

The highest dream of the guests was realized--the Countess had come,
too. With excited joy they met her, receiving impressions that would
last them for all their lives, for those large widening waves of
reminiscence which delight us the more as years pass. It was an
incredible glory--Mrs. Isabelle Carter Blake, _and_ a Countess!

Some were moved to note that Mrs. Morrison looked the easy peer of these
eminent ladies, and treated the foreign nobility precisely as she did
her other friends.

She spoke, her clear quiet voice reaching across the murmuring din, and
silencing it.

"Shall we go into the east room? If you will all take chairs in the
east room, Mrs. Blake is going to be so kind as to address us. Also
perhaps her friend--"

They crowded in, sitting somewhat timorously on the unfolded chairs.

Then the great Mrs. Blake made them an address of memorable power and
beauty, which received vivid sanction from that imposing presence in
Parisian garments on the platform by her side. Mrs. Blake spoke to them
of the work she was interested in, and how it was aided everywhere by
the women's clubs. She gave them the number of these clubs, and
described with contagious enthusiasm the inspiration of their great
meetings. She spoke of the women's club houses, going up in city after
city, where many associations meet and help one another. She was
winning and convincing and most entertaining--an extremely attractive
speaker.

Had they a women's club there? They had not.

Not _yet,_ she suggested, adding that it took no time at all to make
one.

They were delighted and impressed with Mrs. Blake's speech, but its
effect was greatly intensified by the address of the Countess.

"I, too, am American," she told them; "born here, reared in England,
married in Italy." And she stirred their hearts with a vivid account of
the women's clubs and associations all over Europe, and what they were
accomplishing. She was going back soon, she said, the wiser and happier
for this visit to her native land, and she should remember particularly
this beautiful, quiet town, trusting that if she came to it again it
would have joined the great sisterhood of women, "whose hands were
touching around the world for the common good."

It was a great occasion.

The Countess left next day, but Mrs. Blake remained, and spoke in some
of the church meetings, to an ever widening circle of admirers. Her
suggestions were practical.

"What you need here is a 'Rest and Improvement Club,'" she said. "Here
are all you women coming in from the country to do your shopping--and no
place to go to. No place to lie down if you're tired, to meet a friend,
to eat your lunch in peace, to do your hair. All you have to do is
organize, pay some small regular due, and provide yourselves with what
you want."

There was a volume of questions and suggestions, a little opposition,
much random activity.

Who was to do it? Where was there a suitable place? They would have to
hire someone to take charge of it. It would only be used once a week.
It would cost too much.

Mrs. Blake, still practical, made another suggestion. Why not combine
business with pleasure, and make use of the best place in town, if you
can get it? I _think_ Mrs. Morrison could be persuaded to let you use
part of her house; it's quite too big for one woman."

Then Mrs. Morrison, simple and cordial as ever, greeted with warm
enthusiasm by her wide circle of friends.

"I have been thinking this over," she said. "Mrs. Blake has been
discussing it with me. My house is certainly big enough for all of you,
and there am I, with nothing to do but entertain you. Suppose you
formed such a club as you speak of--for Rest and Improvement. My
parlors are big enough for all manner of meetings; there are bedrooms in
plenty for resting. If you form such a club I shall be glad to help
with my great, cumbersome house, shall be delighted to see so many
friends there so often; and I think I could furnish accommodations more
cheaply than you could manage in any other way.

Then Mrs. Blake gave them facts and figures, showing how much clubhouses
cost--and how little this arrangement would cost. "Most women have very
little money, I know," she said, "and they hate to spend it on
themselves when they have; but even a little money from each goes a long
way when it is put together. I fancy there are none of us so poor we
could not squeeze out, say ten cents a week. For a hundred women that
would be ten dollars. Could you feed a hundred tired women for ten
dollars, Mrs. Morrison?"