The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue.
The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette,
fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be
answered, unless at peril of the asker.

AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:

One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman
One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman
Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman
"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman
And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?

THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

_____ 19__

Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from
_____ 19___ to _____ 19___

__________

__________

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[Advertisement]

TO RENT

A Summer Cottage
on Lake Champlain
Near the Adirondacks

This is a six-room two-story cottage, natural wood finish, unplastered,
on two and a half acres of land, 600 feet on the lake, with an old apple
orchard and many other trees. It has on two sides covered piazzas,
outside blinds, open fireplaces in two rooms; and new white enameled
open plumbing, with hot and cold water. It is about a mile and a half
from Essex Village, and about one-quarter of a mile from the post
office, at the Crater Club, an exclusive summer colony. Access by boat
and train.

I have not seen this cottage, but I've seen plans, elevations and
photographs of it, and of views from it. It stands on a bluff, close to
the lake, the Green Mountains far in the east, and the Adirondacks some
twelve miles to the west. The people who own it will answer further
questions and state facts fully on request, both advantages and
disadvantages.

The list of furnishings is accurate and circumstantial, as follows:

INVENTORY OF CONTENTS OF COTTAGE

LIVING ROOM

Mahogany sofa, small mahogany table
Marble-topped table and "Crowning of Esther"
4 rosewood chairs, steamer chair
Whatnot, wall-bracket, books, basket
Mahogany table, small round 3-legged
Long mantel mirror, gilt frame
3 oil paintings, 3 engravings
Rustic seat (filled with wood)
Old-fashioned heating stove, crated
Candle-lantern, 2 Japanese trays
Door-scraper, woodbasket
Tongs-holder, hearth brush
Child's garden tools
2 sofa cushions
Various small ornaments

KITCHEN

Ironing Table, stand, wax, bosom board
Tin pail, dipper, basin
1 new broom, 1 old broom
Tool box, tools, nails, saw, hatchet
Hammock, barrel hammock, tie ropes
Soap rack, dustpan, scrap basket
Folding hat rack, ladder
Carving set, 6 knives (very old)
Coffee pot, toaster, egg whip, egg beater
5 large white china plates
5 medium and 6 small ditto
6 demi tasse and saucers, same
2 tea cups, 6 saucers, same
2 egg stands, green; 2 sugar bowls
1 butterfly cup and saucer
6 glasses, 1 lemon squeezer
1 mechanical red-glass lamp
2 reading lamps, 3 small hand lamps
3 small bracket lamps, 1 shade
White shades at all windows

GREEN BEDROOM

Green bedstead (three-quarter)
2 mattresses, 2 pillows, madras cover
Green bureau; green washstand
Green table; green rocking chair
Oak chair; 2 pictures; 1 chamber

LARGE EAST BEDROOM

Oak bedstead (double)
Oak bureau, oak washstand
2 mattresses, 2 feather beds, 1 bolster
2 pillows, madras spread
1 box cot, 1 mattress, straw pillow
2 chairs, 2 towel racks
Bureau cover, pen cushion, etc.
3 pictures

SOUTHWEST BEDROOM
Black walnut single bedstead
1 hair mattress and bolster
1 pillow, 1 feather bed, 1 madras spread
Bureau (mirror broken), 2 towel racks
Mahogany washstand, mirror
Small 3-legged table
3 rosewood chairs
Bureau cover, pin cushion, etc.
Shoebag on wall
Oil painting, on copper
Brass stair rods, in closet

NORTHWEST BEDROOM

2 mahogany bureaus, empty trunk
Portable bath-tub, clothes basket
On shelves: 7 sheets, 7 pillow cases
3 table cloths, 10 doilies
4 towels, dish cloths and towels
Bureau and tray cloths
Curtains, enough for doors
Curtains for some windows

Apply to "Summer Cottage," care of The Forerunner or to John B. Burnham,
Agent, Essex, N.Y.

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR
.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 7
MAY, 1910
Copyright for 1910
C. P. Gilman

Having made pockets, we need not carry so many things in our hands.
Having made books, we need not carry so many things in our heads.

BRAIN SERVICE

We offer our hearts to God, contrite and broken;
Why not offer our brains, whole and alive?
Why follow the grovelling words wailing old races have spoken?
Bow and submit, when we ought to resist and strive!

What is this "heart" that you offer? A circulator,
An organ that quivers and starts at the fears of the hour.
Why not offer your head? And hold it straighter?
Bring to the service of God your noblest power?

When we learn to credit Him with our great ideals, and greater--
When we all stand up at last, stop kissing the rod--
When we bring the brains of to-day to seek and serve the Creator--
God will look better to us, and we shall look better to God.

WHEN I WAS A WITCH

If I had understood the terms of that one-sided contract with Satan, the
Time of Witching would have lasted longer--you may be sure of that. But
how was I to tell? It just happened, and has never happened again,
though I've tried the same preliminaries as far as I could control them.

The thing began all of a sudden, one October midnight--the 30th, to be
exact. It had been hot, really hot, all day, and was sultry and
thunderous in the evening; no air stirring, and the whole house stewing
with that ill-advised activity which always seems to move the steam
radiator when it isn't wanted.

I was in a state of simmering rage--hot enough, even without the weather
and the furnace--and I went up on the roof to cool off. A top-floor
apartment has that advantage, among others--you can take a walk without
the mediation of an elevator boy!

There are things enough in New York to lose one's temper over at the
best of times, and on this particular day they seemed to all happen at
once, and some fresh ones. The night before, cats and dogs had broken
my rest, of course. My morning paper was more than usually mendacious;
and my neighbor's morning paper--more visible than my own as I went down
town--was more than usually salacious. My cream wasn't cream--my egg
was a relic of the past. My "new" napkins were giving out.

Being a woman, I'm supposed not to swear; but when the motorman
disregarded my plain signal, and grinned as he rushed by; when the
subway guard waited till I was just about to step on board and then
slammed the door in my face--standing behind it calmly for some minutes
before the bell rang to warrant his closing--I desired to swear like a
mule-driver.

At night it was worse. The way people paw one's back in the crowd! The
cow-puncher who packs the people in or jerks them out--the men who smoke
and spit, law or no law--the women whose saw-edged cart-wheel hats,
swashing feathers and deadly pins, add so to one's comfort inside.

Well, as I said, I was in a particularly bad temper, and went up on the
roof to cool off. Heavy black clouds hung low overhead, and lightning
flickered threateningly here and there.

A starved, black cat stole from behind a chimney and mewed dolefully.
Poor thing! She had been scalded.

The street was quiet for New York. I leaned over a little and looked up
and down the long parallels of twinkling lights. A belated cab drew
near, the horse so tired he could hardly hold his head up.

Then the driver, with a skill born of plenteous practice, flung out his
long-lashed whip and curled it under the poor beast's belly with a
stinging cut that made me shudder. The horse shuddered too, poor
wretch, and jingled his harness with an effort at a trot.

I leaned over the parapet and watched that man with a spirit of
unmitigated ill-will.

"I wish," said I, slowly--and I did wish it with all my heart--"that
every person who strikes or otherwise hurts a horse unnecessarily, shall
feel the pain intended--and the horse not feel it!"

It did me good to say it, anyhow, but I never expected any result. I
saw the man swing his great whip again, and--lay on heartily. I saw him
throw up his hands--heard him scream--but I never thought what the
matter was, even then.

The lean, black cat, timid but trustful, rubbed against my skirt and
mewed.

"Poor Kitty" I said; "poor Kitty! It is a shame!" And I thought
tenderly of all the thousands of hungry, hunted cats who stink and
suffer its a great city.

Later, when I tried to sleep, and up across the stillness rose the
raucous shrieks of some of these same sufferers, my pity turned cold.
"Any fool that will try to keep a cat in a city!" I muttered, angrily.

Another yell--a pause--an ear-torturing, continuous cry. "I wish," I
burst forth, "that every cat in the city was comfortably dead!"

A sudden silence fell, and in course of time I got to sleep.

Things went fairly well next morning, till I tried another egg. They
were expensive eggs, too.

"I can't help it!" said my sister, who keeps house.

"I know you can't," I admitted. "But somebody could help it. I wish
the people who are responsible had to eat their old eggs, and never get
a good one till they sold good ones!"

"They'd stop eating eggs, that's all," said my sister, "and eat meat."

"Let 'em eat meat!" I said, recklessly. "The meat is as bad as the
eggs! It's so long since we've had a clean, fresh chicken that I've
forgotten how they taste!"

"It's cold storage," said my sister. She is a peaceable sort; I'm not.

"Yes, cold storage!" I snapped. "It ought to be a blessing--to tide
over shortages, equalize supplies, and lower prices. What does it do?
Corner the market, raise prices the year round, and make all the food
bad!"

My anger rose. "If there was any way of getting at them!" I cried.
"The law don't touch 'em. They need to be cursed somehow! I'd like to
do it! I wish the whole crowd that profit by this vicious business
might taste their bad meat, their old fish, their stale milk--whatever
they ate. Yes, and feel the prices as we do!"

"They couldn't you know; they're rich," said my sister.

"I know that," I admitted, sulkily. "There's no way of getting at 'em.
But I wish they could. And I wish they knew how people hated 'em, and
felt that, too--till they mended their ways!"

When I left for my office I saw a funny thing. A man who drove a
garbage cart took his horse by the bits and jerked and wrenched
brutally. I was amazed to see him clap his hands to his own jaws with a
moan, while the horse philosophically licked his chops and looked at
him.

The man seemed to resent his expression, and struck him on the head,
only to rub his own poll and swear amazedly, looking around to see who
had hit him. the horse advanced a step, stretching a hungry nose toward
a garbage pail crowned with cabbage leaves, and the man, recovering his
sense of proprietorship, swore at him and kicked him in the ribs. That
time he had to sit down, turning pale and weak. I watched with growing
wonder and delight.

A market wagon came clattering down the street; the hard-faced young
ruffian fresh for his morning task. He gathered the ends of the reins
and brought them down on the horse's back with a resounding thwack. The
horse did not notice this at all, but the boy did. He yelled!

I came to a place where many teamsters were at work hauling dirt and
crushed stone. A strange silence and peace hung over the scene where
usually the sound of the lash and sight of brutal blows made me hurry
by. The men were talking together a little, and seemed to be exchanging
notes. It was too good to be true. I gazed and marvelled, waiting for
my car.

It came, merrily running along. It was not full. There was one not far
ahead, which I had missed in watching the horses; there was no other
near it in the rear.

Yet the coarse-faced person in authority who ran it, went gaily by
without stopping, though I stood on the track almost, and waved my
umbrella.

A hot flush of rage surged to my face. "I wish you felt the blow you
deserve," said I, viciously, looking after the car. "I wish you'd have
to stop, and back to here, and open the door and apologize. I wish that
would happen to all of you, every time you play that trick."

To my infinite amazement, that car stopped and backed till the front
door was before me. The motorman opened it. holding his hand to his
cheek. "Beg your pardon, madam!" he said.

I passed in, dazed, overwhelmed. Could it be? Could it possibly be
that--that what I wished came true. The idea sobered me, but I
dismissed it with a scornful smile. "No such luck!" said I.

Opposite me sat a person in petticoats. She was of a sort I
particularly detest. No real body of bones and muscles, but the
contours of grouped sausages. Complacent, gaudily dressed, heavily
wigged and ratted, with powder and perfume and flowers and jewels--and a
dog.

A poor, wretched, little, artificial dog--alive, but only so by virtue
of man's insolence; not a real creature that God made. And the dog had
clothes on--and a bracelet! His fitted jacket had a pocket--and a
pocket-handkerchief! He looked sick and unhappy.

I meditated on his pitiful position, and that of all the other poor
chained prisoners, leading unnatural lives of enforced celibacy, cut off
from sunlight, fresh air, the use of their limbs; led forth at stated
intervals by unwilling servants, to defile our streets; over-fed,
under-exercised, nervous and unhealthy.

"And we say we love them!" said I, bitterly to myself. "No wonder they
bark and howl and go mad. No wonder they have almost as many diseases
as we do! I wish--" Here the thought I had dismissed struck me agin.
"I wish that all the unhappy dogs in cities would die at once!"

I watched the sad-eyed little invalid across the car. He dropped his
head and died. She never noticed it till she got off; then she made
fuss enough.

The evening papers were full of it. Some sudden pestilence had struck
both dogs and cats, it would appear. Red headlines struck the eye, big
letters, and columns were filled out of the complaints of those who had
lost their "pets," of the sudden labors of the board of health, and
interviews with doctors.

All day, as I went through the office routine, the strange sense of this
new power struggled with reason and common knowledge. I even tried a
few furtive test "wishes"--wished that the waste basket would fall over,
that the inkstand would fill itself; but they didn't.

I dismissed the idea as pure foolishness, till I saw those newspapers,
and heard people telling worse stories.

One thing I decided at once--not to tell a soul. "Nobody'd believe me
if I did," said I to myself. "And I won't give 'em the chance. I've
scored on cats and dogs, anyhow--and horses."

As I watched the horses at work that afternoon, and thought of all their
unknown sufferings from crowded city stables, bad air and insufficient
food, and from the wearing strain of asphalt pavements in wet and icy
weather, I decided to have another try on horses.

"I wish," said I, slowly and carefully, but with a fixed intensity of
purposes, "that every horse owner, keeper, hirer and driver or rider,
might feel what the horse feels, when he suffers at our hands. Feel it
keenly and constantly till the case is mended."

I wasn't able to verify this attempt for some time; but the effect was
so general that it got widely talked about soon; and this "new wave of
humane feeling" soon raised the status of horses in our city. Also it
diminished their numbers. People began to prefer motor drays--which was
a mighty good thing.

Now I felt pretty well assured in my own mind, and kept my assurance to
my
self. Also I began to make a list of my cherished grudges, with a fine
sense of power and pleasure.

"I must be careful," I said to myself; "very careful; and, above all
things, make the punishment fit the crime."

The subway crowding came to my mind next; both the people who crowd
because they have to, and the people who make them. "I mustn't punish
anybody, for what they can't help," I mused. "But when it's pure
meanness!" Then I bethought me of the remote stockholders, of the more
immediate directors, of the painfully prominent officials and insolent
employees--and got to work.

"I might as well make a good job of it while this lasts," said I to
myself. "It's quite a responsibility, but lots of fun." And I wished
that every person responsible for the condition of our subways might be
mysteriously compelled to ride up and down in them continuously during
rush hours.

This experiment I watched with keen interest, but for the life of me I
could see little difference. There were a few more well-dressed persons
in the crowds, that was all. So I came to the conclusion that the
general public was mostly to blame, and carried their daily punishment
without knowing it.

For the insolent guards and cheating ticket-sellers who give you short
change, very slowly, when you are dancing on one foot and your train is
there, I merely wished that they might feel the pain their victims would
like to give them, short of real injury. They did, I guess.

Then I wished similar things for all manner of corporations and
officials. It worked. It worked amazingly. There was a sudden
conscientious revival all over the country. The dry bones rattled and
sat up. Boards of directors, having troubles enough of their own, were
aggravated by innumerable communications from suddenly sensitive
stockholders.

In mills and mints and railroads, things began to mend. The country
buzzed. The papers fattened. The churches sat up and took credit to
themselves. I was incensed at this; and, after brief consideration,
wished that every minister would preach to his congregation exactly what
he believed and what he thought of them.

I went to six services the next Sunday--about ten minutes each, for two
sessions. It was most amusing. A thousand pulpits were emptied
forthwith, refilled, re-emptied, and so on, from week to week. People
began to go to church; men largely--women didn't like it as well. They
had always supposed the ministers thought more highly of them than now
appeared to be the case.

One of my oldest grudges was against the sleeping-car people; and now I
began to consider them. How often I had grinned and borne it--with
other thousands--submitting helplessly.

Here is a railroad--a common carrier--and you have to use it. You pay
for your transportation, a good round sum.

Then if you wish to stay in the sleeping car during the day, they charge
you another two dollars and a half for the privilege of sitting there,
whereas you have paid for a seat when you bought your ticket. That seat
is now sold to another person--twice sold! Five dollars for twenty-four
hours in a space six feet by three by three at night, and one seat by
day; twenty-four of these privileges to a car--$120 a day for the rent
of the car--and the passengers to pay the porter besides. That makes
$44,800 a year.

Sleeping cars are expensive to build, they say. So are hotels; but they
do not charge at such a rate. Now, what could I do to get even?
Nothing could ever put back the dollars into the millions of pockets;
but it might be stopped now, this beautiful process.

So I wished that all persons who profited by this performance might feel
a shame so keen that they would make public avowal and apology, and, as
partial restitution, offer their wealth to promote the cause of free
railroads!

Then I remembered parrots. This was lucky, for my wrath flamed again.
It was really cooling, as I tried to work out responsibility and adjust
penalties. But parrots! Any person who wants to keep a parrot should
go and live on an island alone with their preferred conversationalist!

There was a huge, squawky parrot right across the street from me, adding
its senseless, rasping cries to the more necessary evils of other
noises.

I had also an aunt with a parrot. She was a wealthy, ostentatious
person, who had been an only child and inherited her money.

Uncle Joseph hated the yelling bird, but that didn't make any difference
to Aunt Mathilda.

I didn't like this aunt, and wouldn't visit her, lest she think I was
truckling for the sake of her money; but after I had wished this time, I
called at the time set for my curse to work; and it did work with a
vengeance. There sat poor Uncle Joe, looking thinner and meeker than
ever; and my aunt, like an overripe plum, complacent enough.

"Let me out!" said Polly, suddenly. "Let me out to take a walk!"

"The clever thing!" said Aunt Mathilda. "He never said that before."

She let him out. Then he flapped up on the chandelier and sat among the
prisms, quite safe.

"What an old pig you are, Mathilda!" said the parrot.

She started to her feet--naturally.

"Born a Pig--trained a Pig--a Pig by nature and education!" said the
parrot. "Nobody'd put up with you, except for your money; unless it's
this long-suffering husband of yours. He wouldn't, if he hadn't the
patience of Job!"

"Hold your tongue!" screamed Aunt Mathilda. "Come down from there!
Come here!"

Polly cocked his head and jingled the prisms. "Sit down, Mathilda!" he
said, cheerfully. "You've got to listen. You are fat and homely and
selfish. You are a nuisance to everybody about you. You have got to
feed me and take care of me better than ever--and you've got to listen
to me when I talk. Pig!"

I visited another person with a parrot the next day. She put a cloth
over his cage when I came in.

"Take it off!" said Polly. She took it off.

"Won't you come into the other room?" she asked me, nervously.

"Better stay here!" said her pet. "Sit still--sit still!"

She sat still.

"Your hair is mostly false," said pretty Poll. "And your teeth--and
your outlines. You eat too much. You are lazy. You ought to exercise,
and don't know enough. Better apologize to this lady for backbiting!
You've got to listen."

The trade in parrots fell off from that day; they say there is no call
for them. But the people who kept parrots, keep them yet--parrots live
a long time.

Bores were a class of offenders against whom I had long borne undying
enmity. Now I rubbed my hands and began on them, with this simple wish:
That every person whom they bored should tell them the plain truth.

There is one man whom I have specially in mind. He was blackballed at a
pleasant club, but continues to go there. He isn't a member--he just
goes; and no one does anything to him.

It was very funny after this. He appeared that very night at a meeting,
and almost every person present asked him how he came there. "You're
not a member, you know," they said. "Why do you butt in? Nobody likes
you."

Some were more lenient with him. "Why don't you learn to be more
considerate of others, and make some real friends?" they said. "To have
a few friends who do enjoy your visits ought to be pleasanter than being
a public nuisance."

He disappeared from that club, anyway.

I began to feel very cocky indeed.

In the food business there was already a marked improvement; and in
transportation. The hubbub of reformation waxed louder daily, urged on
by the unknown sufferings of all the profiters by iniquity.

The papers thrived on all this; and as I watched the loud-voiced
protestations of my pet abomination in journalism, I had a brilliant
idea, literally.

Next morning I was down town early, watching the men open their papers.
My abomination was shamefully popular, and never more so than this
morning. Across the top was printing in gold letters:

All intentional lies, in adv., editorial, news, or any other column. .
.Scarlet
All malicious matter. . .Crimson
All careless or ignorant mistakes. . .Pink
All for direct self-interest of owner. . .Dark green
All mere bait--to sell the paper. . .Bright green
All advertising, primary or secondary. . .Brown
All sensational and salacious matter. . .Yellow
All hired hypocrisy. . .Purple
Good fun, instruction and entertainment. . .Blue
True and necessary news and honest editorials. . .Ordinary print

You never saw such a crazy quilt of a paper. They were bought like hot
cakes for some days; but the real business fell off very soon. They'd
have stopped it all if they could; but the papers looked all right when
they came off the press. The color scheme flamed out only to the
bona-fide reader.

I let this work for about a week, to the immense joy of all the other
papers; and then turned it on to them, all at once. Newspaper reading
became very exciting for a little, but the trade fell off. Even
newspaper editors could not keep on feeding a market like that. The
blue printed and ordinary printed matter grew from column to column and
page to page. Some papers--small, to be sure, but refreshing--began to
appear in blue and black alone.