The Greatest Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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it. It gave me a creepy feeling, as of one slowly surmounted by a rising tide. “Are you — do you mean to tell me, Nellie, that you women are trying to make men over to suit yourselves?”
“Yes. Why not? Didn’t you make women to suit yourselves for several thousand years? You bred and trained us to suit your tastes; you liked us small, you liked us weak, you liked us timid, you liked us ignorant, you liked us pretty — what you called pretty — and you eliminated the kinds you did not like.”
How, if you please?” ‘By the same process we use — by not marrying them. Then, you see, there aren’t any more of that kind.”
“You are wrong, Nellie — you’re absurdly wrong. Women were naturally that way; that is, womanly women were, and men preferred that kind, of course.”
“How do you know women were ‘naturally’ like that? — without special education and artificial selection, and all manner of restrictions and penalties? Where were any women ever allowed to grow up ‘naturally’ until now?”
I maintained a sulky silence, looking down at the lovely green fields and forests beneath. “Have you exterminated dogs?” I asked.
“Not yet. There are a good many real dogs left. But we don’t make artificial ones any more.”
“I suppose you keep all the cats — being women.” She laughed.
“No; we keep very few. Cats kill birds, and we need the birds for our farms and gardens. They keep the insects down.”
“Do they keep the mice down, too?”
“Owls and night-hawks do, as far as they can. But we attend to the mice ourselves. Concrete construction and the removal of the kitchen did that. We do not live in food warehouses now. There, look! We are coming to Westholm Park; that was one of the first.”
In all the beauty spread below me, the great park showed more beautiful, outlined by a thick belt of trees.
We kept our vehicle gliding slowly above it while Nellie pointed things out. “It’s about 300 acres,” she said. “You can see the woodland and empty part — all that is left wild. That big patch there is pasturage
— they keep their own sheep and cows. There are gardens and meadows. Up in the corner is the children’s playground, bathing pool, and special buildings. Here is the playground for grown-ups — and their lake. This big spreading thing is the guest house and general playhouse for the folks — ballroom, billiards, bowling, and so on. Behind it is the plant for the whole thing. The water tower you’ll see to more advantage when we land. And all around you see the homes; each family has an acre or so.”
We dropped softly to the landing platform and came down to the pleasure ground beneath. In a little motor we ran about the place for awhile, that I might see the perfect roads, shaded with arching trees, the endless variety of arrangement, the miles of flowers, the fruit on every side.
“You must have had a good landscape architect to plan this,” I suggested.
“We did — one of the best.”
“It’s not so very unlike a great, first-class summer hotel, with singularly beautiful surroundings.”
“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “We had oiy best summer resorts in mind when we began to plan these places. People used to pay heavily in summer to enjoy a place where everything was done to make life smooth and pleasant. It occurred to us at last that we might live that way.”
“Who wants to live in a summer hotel all the time? Excuse me!”
“O, they don’t. The people here nearly all live in ‘homes’ — the homiest kind — each on its own ground, as you see. Only some unattached ones, and people who really like it, live in the hotel — with transients, of course. Let’s call here; I know this family.”
She introduced me to Mrs. Masson, a sweet, motherly little woman, rocking softly on her vine-shadowed piazza, a child in her arms. She was eager to tell me about things — most people were, I found.
“I’m a reactionary, Mr. Robertson. I prefer to work at home, and I prefer to keep my children with me, all I can.”
“Isn’t that allowed nowadays?“I inquired.
“O, yes; if one qualifies. I did. I took the child-culture course, but I do not want to be a regular teacher. My work is done right here, and I can have them as well as not, but they won’t stay much.”
Even as she spoke the little thing in her arms whispered eagerly to her mother, slipped to the floor, ran out of the gate, her little pink legs fairly twinkling, and joined an older child who was passing.
“They like to be with the others, you see. This is my baby; I manage to hold on to her for part of the day, but she’s always running off to The Garden when she can.”
“The Garden?”
“Yes; it’s a regular Child Garden, where they are cultivated and grow! And they do so love to growl”
She showed us her pretty little house and her lovely work — embroidery. “I’m so fortunate,” she said, “loving home as I do, to have work that’s just as well done here.”
I learned that there were some thirty families living in the grounds, not counting the hotel people. Quite a number found their work in the necessary activities of the place itself.
“We have a long string of places, you see — from the general manager to the gardeners and dairymen. It is really quite a piece of work, to care for some two hundred and fifty people,” Mrs. Masson explained with some pride.
“Instead of a horde of servants and small tradesmen to make a living off these thirty families, we have a small corps of highly trained officers,” added Nellie.
“And do you cooperate in housekeeping?” I inquired, meaning no harm, though my sister was quite severe with me for this slip.
“No, indeed,” protested Mrs. Masson. “I do despise being mixed up with other families. I’ve been here nearly a year, and I hardly know anyone.” And she rocked back and forth, complacently.
“But I thought that the meals were cooperative.”
“O, not at all — not at edit Just see my dining-room! And you must be tired and hungry, now, Mrs. Robertson — don’t say no! I’ll have lunch in a moment. Excuse pie, please.”
She retired to the telephone, but we could hear her ordering lunch. “Right away, please; No. 5; no, let me see — No. 7, please. And have you fresh mushrooms? Extra; four plates.”
Her husband came home in time for the meal, and she presided just like any other little matron over a pretty table and a daintily served lunch; but it came down from the hotel in a neat, light case, to which the remnants and the dishes were returned.
“O, I wouldn’t give up my own table for the world! And my own dishes; they take excellent care of them. Our breakfasts we get all together — see my kitchen!’’ And she proudly exhibited a small, light closet, where an immaculate porcelain sink, with hot and cold water, a glass-doored “cold closet” and a shining electric stove, allowed the preparation of many small meals.
Nellie smiled blandly as she saw this little lady claiming conservatism in what struck me as being quite sufficiently progressive, while Mr. Masson smiled in proud content.
“I took you there on purpose,” she told me later. “She is really quite reactionary for nowadays, and not over popular. Come and see the guest-house.”
This was a big, wide-spread concrete building, with terraces and balconies and wide roofs, where people strolled and sat. It rose proudly from its wide lawns and blooming greenery, a picture of peace and pleasure.
“It’s like a country club, with more sleeping rooms,” I suggested. “But isn’t it awfully expensive — the year round?”
“It’s