THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: Short Stories, Novels, Poems & Essays. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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but sparsely dotted with a few disconnected ideas such as "cowboy," "blizzard," "prairie fire," "tornado," "border ruffian," and the like.
The girl's painstaking description of the spreading, vigorous young town, with its fine, modern buildings, its banks and stores and theatres, its country club and parks, its pleasant social life, made small impression on the Bainville mind. But the fact that Miss Elder's venture was successful from the first did impress old acquaintances, and Mrs. Lane read aloud to selected visitors her daughter's accounts of their new and agreeable friends. Nothing was said of "chaps," "sombreros," or "shooting up the town," however, and therein a distinct sense of loss was felt.
Much of what was passing in Vivian's mind she could not make clear to her mother had she wished to. The daily presence and very friendly advances of so many men, mostly young and all polite (with the exception of Dr. Hale, whose indifference was almost rude by contrast), gave a new life and color to the days.
She could not help giving some thought to this varied assortment, and the carefully preserved image of Morton, already nine years dim, waxed dimmer. But she had a vague consciousness of being untrue to her ideals, or to Mrs. St. Cloud's ideals, now somewhat discredited, and did not readily give herself up to the cheerful attractiveness of the position.
Susie found no such difficulty. Her ideals were simple, and while quite within the bounds of decorum, left her plenty of room for amusement. So popular did she become, so constantly in demand for rides and walks and oft-recurring dances, that Vivian felt called upon to give elder sisterly advice.
But Miss Susan scouted her admonitions.
"Why shouldn't I have a good time?" she said. "Think how we grew up! Half a dozen boys to twenty girls, and when there was anything to go to—the lordly way they'd pick and choose! And after all our efforts and machinations most of us had to dance with each other. And the quarrels we had! Here they stand around three deep asking for dances—and they have to dance with each other, and they do the quarreling. I've heard 'em." And Sue giggled delightedly.
"There's no reason we shouldn't enjoy ourselves, Susie, of course, but aren't you—rather hard on them?"
"Oh, nonsense!" Sue protested. "Dr. Bellair said I should get married out here! She says the same old thing—that it's 'a woman's duty,' and I propose to do it. That is—they'll propose, and I won't do it! Not till I make up my mind. Now see how you like this!"
She had taken a fine large block of "legal cap" and set down their fifteen men thereon, with casual comment.
1. Mr. Unwin—Too old, big, quiet.
2. Mr. Elmer Skee—Big, too old, funny.
3. Jimmy Saunders—Middle-sized, amusing, nice.
4. P. R. Gibbs—Too little, too thin, too cocky.
5. George Waterson—Middling, pretty nice.
6. J. J. Cuthbert—Big, horrid.
7. Fordham Greer—Big, pleasant.
8. W. S. Horton—Nothing much.
9. A. L. Dykeman—Interesting, too old.
10. Professor Toomey—Little, horrid.
11. Arthur Fitzwilliam—Ridiculous, too young.
12. Howard Winchester—Too nice, distrust him.
13. Lawson W. Briggs—Nothing much.
14. Edward S. Jenks—Fair to middling.
15. Mr. A. Smith—Minus.
She held it up in triumph. "I got 'em all out of the book—quite correct. Now, which'll you have."
"Susie Elder! You little goose! Do you imagine that all these fifteen men are going to propose to you?"
"I'm sure I hope so!" said the cheerful damsel. "We've only been settled a fortnight and one of 'em has already!"
Vivian was impressed at once. "Which?—You don't mean it!"
Sue pointed to the one marked "minus."
"It was only 'A. Smith.' I never should be willing to belong to 'A. Smith,' it's too indefinite—unless it was a last resort. Several more are—well, extremely friendly! Now don't look so severe. You needn't worry about me. I'm not quite so foolish as I talk, you know."
She was not. Her words were light and saucy, but she was as demure and decorous a little New Englander as need be desired; and she could not help it if the hearts of the unattached young men of whom the town was full, warmed towards her.
Dr. Bellair astonished them at lunch one day in their first week.
"Dick Hale wants us all to come over to tea this afternoon," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Tea? Where?" asked Mrs. Pettigrew sharply.
"At his house. He has 'a home of his own,' you know. And he particularly wants you, Mrs. Pettigrew—and Miss Elder—the girls, of course."
"I'm sure I don't care to go," Vivian remarked with serene indifference, but Susie did.
"Oh, come on, Vivian! It'll be so funny! A man's home!—and we may never get another chance. He's such a bear!"
Dr. Hale's big house was only across the road from theirs, standing in a large lot with bushes and trees about it.
"He's been here nine years," Dr. Bellair told them. "That's an old inhabitant for us. He boarded in that house for a while; then it was for sale and he bought it. He built that little office of his at the corner—says he doesn't like to live where he works, or work where he lives. He took his meals over here for a while—and then set up for himself."
"I should think he'd be lonely," Miss Elder suggested.
"Oh, he has his boys, you know—always three or four young fellows about him. It's a mighty good thing for them, too."
Dr. Hale's home proved a genuine surprise. They had regarded it as a big, neglected-looking place, and found on entering the gate that the inside view of that rampant shrubbery was extremely pleasant. Though not close cut and swept of leaves and twigs, it still was beautiful; and the tennis court and tether-ball ring showed the ground well used.
Grandma looked about her with a keen interrogative eye, and was much impressed, as, indeed, were they all. She voiced their feelings justly when, the true inwardness of this pleasant home bursting fully upon them, she exclaimed:
"Well, of all things! A man keeping house!"
"Why not?" asked Dr. Hale with his dry smile. "Is there any deficiency, mental or physical, about a man, to prevent his attempting this abstruse art?"
She looked at him sharply. "I don't know about deficiency, but there seems to be somethin' about 'em that keeps 'em out of the business. I guess it's because women are so cheap."
"No doubt you are right, Mrs. Pettigrew. And here women are scarce and high. Hence my poor efforts."
His poor efforts had bought or built a roomy pleasant house, and furnished it with a solid comfort and calm attractiveness that was most satisfying. Two Chinamen did the work; cooking, cleaning, washing, waiting on table, with silent efficiency. "They are as steady as eight-day clocks," said Dr. Hale. "I pay them good wages and they are worth it."
"Sun here had to go home once—to be married, also, to see his honored parents, I believe, and to leave a grand-'Sun' to attend to the ancestors; but he brought in another Chink first and trained him so well that I hardly noticed the difference. Came back in a year or so, and resumed his place without a jar."
Miss Elder watched with fascinated eyes these soft-footed servants with clean, white garments and shiny coils of long, braided hair.
"I may have to come to it," she admitted, "but—dear me, it doesn't seem natural to have a man doing housework!"