At the Age of Eve.
by Kate Trimble Sharber.
CHAPTER I
ANN
In beginning this record I find that it is no easy matter to feel at home with a clean, blank journal. The possibilities of these spotless pages seem to oppress me, and I am weighted down with the idea that my opening sentences ought to sound brilliant and promising.
With this thought I have started three or four entries on sc.r.a.ps of paper lying here about my desk, but I find that not one of them is the kind of thing which would make you bend over close and knit your brows, thinking you had picked up Plato by mistake.
No matter what lofty sentiments I have in my mind you can always hear the swish of petticoats through my paragraphs and I regret this, for all my life I have longed to write something that would sound like George Eliot. In the world of books she is my idol--my lady idol, I mean, for of course the dearest idols of all are the poets, and they are always men.
"George Eliot is my lady idol and my man one, too," some one said to me once when I mentioned my preference, and this exactly expresses it.
When you read what she has written you never stop to think whether it was written by a man or by a woman. Even in these days the women who write anything worth reading do it so cleverly that you never for a moment suspect they clean out their fountain-pen with a hair-pin.
How _do_ they manage it, I wonder, when one adjective too many would brand them as a female?
Yet if the s.e.x does not show in the writing, the writing always shows in the s.e.x. If the most masculine man on earth takes a notion to become a writer his friends all begin strange mutterings behind his back, and before long some one has whispered "Sissy." Ah, and if a woman by any chance decides to use her pen a while, so her tongue can rest, her a.s.sociates are quick to p.r.o.nounce that she has grown so _masculine_ since she started this writing business! Verily the pen is mightier than the sword if it can influence s.e.x in a manner that would turn a court physician green with envy.
I should be willing to cut off my hair and call myself George, Henry or even Sam, if I thought it would help me to be a great writer, for, in my soul, I have always longed to write something so great and unfeminine that it would not harm a Trappist monk.
Still, the setting forth of these wishes of mine does not help me to get started comfortably on this new record. Do you notice that I call it a _record_, and not a diary? This is because I expect to write in it only occasionally--skim the cream of events, as it were, instead of boring you with the details of the daily milking.
If it were January first, now, I could think up any number of inspiring New Year sentiments to get started off with; sermons based on the three R"s to be met with most often at this season--Regrets, Resolves and Reforms. Sometimes there is a fourth R which follows quickly on the heels of these--Returns, to the old habits.
Here it is, though, midsummer; and I am sure it would seem to any one looking on that I have no visible means of support for any kind of journal, tucked away as I am in this little town where a girl has not inspiration enough to keep her shirt-waist pulled down in the back.
So, with this remark about my shirt-waist, I put aside my longing to write something like George Eliot and make a frank acknowledgment of my skirts. Right glad I ought to be that I have them, too, for I believe that if data were plentiful on the subject we should find that the "mantle of charity" was originally a skirt. "Just like a fool woman," people say leniently, and are willing to let it pa.s.s.
I am a girl, then, as you will readily gather from the foregoing, simply by putting one and one together--the shirt-waist and the skirt.
I live near a little country town, and am vastly dissatisfied with the cramped stage and meager audience, else why should I be keeping a journal? A journal is not nearly so much a book in which you tell what you do as one in which you tell what you would like to do.
Pray do not imagine from the above that I am longing for a crowded, noisy stage, with lights glittering over tinsel. No, I am not that kind of girl. I like a play of few actors, but where the things happening make _the veins of the neck_ stand out!
In admitting that I do not love the village near which I live I know I run the risk of being considered ill-natured. It would be sweeter of me to make it out a cheery little Cranford of a place, where the tea-kettle steams cozily and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
These things do happen, after a modern, American fashion; and the people who own the tea-kettles and the folds are the same as other people all over the world. I have no quarrel with them. Still, I am forced to admit that time hangs so heavy on my hands I wash my hair every other day. Have you ever noticed how often a woman, who has nothing better to do, will wash her hair?
Here, then, is a brief description of the village, with malice toward none, although at times it may sound malicious:
The surrounding country is so beautiful that if you are coming into the town on the train you are ill-prepared for the hideous little railway station, which is the first shock you receive. The floor of this "depot" is dirtier than anything else on earth could be, save the post-office floor, and there is a rusty little stove in the middle of the room close to the box of sand, around which tobacco juice is being eternally spit, spat, or whatever is the correct form of that unlovely verb.
Close to the station are the livery stables, but we shall pa.s.s by as quickly as possible; and farther up the street is the Racket Store.
Sometimes this place has a very handsome clerk from the city; it is then a busy market. Across the street from the hotel is the millinery establishment, and, if you are on good terms with the milliner, she invites you to come and sit at her front window some mornings just after the eleven-o"clock train has come, so you can get a good view of the interesting drummers.
Most of the local attractions in the way of young men are st.u.r.dy farmers, who, like June-bugs, appear for only a few months every summer. The others, dry goods clerks, bookkeepers and professional whittlers, usually line up on the back benches at church on Sunday evenings and cause mild panics in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the unescorted girls present, whose hearts palpitate painfully during the benediction.
But here I have set forth the doings of Sunday evening before mentioning the events of the afternoon, which, while not exciting, are in a way more characteristic than those of any other time. If the day is fine the country roads blossom forth at irregular intervals with young couples out driving or walking, close to Nature"s heart, yet caring far less for her beauties than for the sight of each other, which, after all, _is_ nature. If there is any one in the town sick enough for his neighbors to be really concerned about him, on Sunday afternoon the sick one"s house is swarming with a crowd sufficient to furnish forth a funeral. This is not _called_ "profaning the Sabbath,"
but it ought to be.
On rainy days, or even on fine ones, the inhabitants who are too old to be a-lovering usually sit around and go to sleep in their chairs, with their mouths wide open. Besides being ungraceful, this is an invitation to tonsilitis. Dear me! I have misspelled that word again, for Doctor Osler says there are two l"s in it, and I am sure there are--in the kind I had last Christmas!
Somewhere in the early fall, about the time for green tomatoes to be made up into pickle, there is the excitement of seeing the new public school teachers file into town, and if you happen to be buying a hat at the millinery store any time within the next few weeks you can hear a complete description of each teacher. One paints her face until it"s mottled, you are told; another has blond hair and brunette eyebrows, so she must have been on the stage; a third evidently has seen "better days," for she wears a diamond ring on her little finger! There is only _one_ more astonishing thing than the way the women of the village talk about these teachers, and that is the way the men marry them!
Again I find that I have antic.i.p.ated and reached the autumn before I have finished with the summer, in the very hottest part of which, usually August, comes an "evangelist" to hold a protracted meeting.
The sound of words always meant so much to me when I was a child, and when I first heard that word, evangelist, I pictured a great, radiant figure, with spreading white wings growing out from a somber suit of black clothes, and holding to his lips a long, graceful trumpet.
Naturally, this was some time ago, when I was quite young, and wanted to be good, so that when I died I could go to heaven, where my chief delight was going to be tending a garden full of silver bells and c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls and pretty maids all in a row. Oh, those silver bells!
In point of beauty they had no rivals in my childish imagination, except Cinderella"s gla.s.s slippers and Aaron"s golden calf! A lovely heaven it was going to be, of light pastel shades, and a great way off from G.o.d! You see I was brought up in such an orthodox atmosphere that I imagined G.o.d was like the princ.i.p.al of a school I once attended, always looking out for offenders with a rod up his sleeve.
It was a distinct disappointment to me when I found that an evangelist is like any ordinary preacher, except that he perspires more.
Sometimes he is sensational and preaches about lace yokes and dancing; and on Sunday afternoon holds a meeting for men only, where he tells them what a terribly bad man _he_ used to be! Again he is "burdened"
with the souls of the whole congregation and preaches h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation in a voice that sounds like pitchforks clanging against iron chains. Now, city preachers seldom do anything like this. In the city pulpits, of recent years, h.e.l.l is like smallpox; it is still _there_, but in a much milder form.
During the revivals there are always one or more abusive sermons directed at the other churches of the town, and, of course, the Episcopalians are ever in a cla.s.s with "the Turk and the comet."
Catholics are unmentionable.
This usually causes much "hard feeling" among the good wives of the town, at an inconvenient time, too, for the season for swapping sweet peach pickle recipes is close at hand. The only people who can maintain a placid spirit during these revivals are those who stay away, and I usually try this plan, unless the evangelist happens to be young and good-looking.
Young and good-looking, ay, there"s the rub! Herein is my lack of material for an interesting journal, so long as I stay here at home.
Notwithstanding these barriers, Cousin Eunice, who was the instigator of my childhood"s diary, has again suggested that I keep a book here by me to "tell off" to occasionally when I feel the need of a mental clearing-house. She says a journal has two points of advantage over the bosom friend a girl of my age usually has; one is, that you can shut it up when you want to go to sleep at night, and the other is that you can burn it when you grow ashamed of the secrets it contains, neither of which you can do to your bosom friend, no matter how badly you may wish to.
The diary which I kept for several years while I was at the gawky age was intended to be secreted between two pieces of board in the attic and discovered by my grandchildren amid tumultuous applause, years hence. But I am far too grown-up for these grandchildren now. The knowledge of my years is ever with me, a sort of binding torment, like an armhole that is too tight, so I shall have to leave the little dears behind, with the fairies and the freckles that I have long since outgrown. They, or the thought of them, used to make me feel that I was on actual speaking terms with my other diary, but perhaps after a while, I may feel on the same terms with you, even without their presence.
In the first place, as a reason for this book"s being, I have always liked the notion of keeping a written account of my thoughts and feelings, especially of my feelings, for they are usually all jumbled up in my mind, like ribbons on a remnant counter, but after I have set them down in black and white where I can stand off and look at them they are no more complicated than sardines in a box. Another reason is that in the diaries, correspondence and love-letters of interesting people (great people, I mean) which I have read, I have found there is a sort of interest which is lacking in their stiff-standing-collar and high-heeled-shoes productions. In this cla.s.s I have read Amiel and Sam Pepys, and the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea, poor dear! How her portrait must have lied! No woman with that much fat on her neck could really love! I adore Amiel and am fond of Pepys, although I wish he had left out about a ton of that venison pasty which his "she-cozen" was usually preparing for his entertainment. It always gets in your line of vision, somehow, whenever you are craning your neck to catch a glimpse of that naughty but nice Charlie Stuart!
Then there was a girl in _Pendennis_ who kept a book of heart-outpourings and called it "Mes Larmes." And my Lord Byron"s dear friend, Lady Blessington, called hers "My Night Book."
Well, mine is not going to be a night book, for that is not my favorite time for mental surveying. I am still a regular lizard in my love for the sunshine, and, if the prospect sounds alluring, I"ll promise that much of this book shall be written in the clear light of day. A good part of my other diary was written up in the old pear tree by the orchard gate, but now I am grown up, so, of course--
"Mes Larmes" would be even worse for a t.i.tle than the one I have just mentioned. Some tears will, of course, be mixed in to make the rainbows of happiness shine through, but I fancy that mine will be princ.i.p.ally a record of work and play. Work that is play and play that is work, mother says, as I sit on the shady porch in the mornings working flowers on my shirt-waist front, and spend the afternoons playing tennis in the hot sun. Work and play, then, for the present; later, maybe, smiles and sighs; while a long, long way in the future, perhaps on the last few pages, there _may_ be--shall I say it? No, I am not well enough acquainted with you yet.
Although I have kept back this one little thought from you in the above, I promise that in the narration of all things which have actually happened this journal is going to be unexpurgated! First, I love truth; and I think that a whole truth is nearly always better than a half. For instance, d----n in print always looked worse to me than d.a.m.n. Then, in the diaries and love-letters I have mentioned above, I have often found that at the very places where matters were getting _so_ interesting you straighten up somewhat and begin to breathe very softly, the narrative breaks suddenly into a row of beastly little dots--and you are left to imagine what you will! Maybe the truth would not have been half so bad as your imaginings--maybe it would have been much worse. It all depends upon the condition of your circulation!
For my part, I like a book to tell the whole truth about what it starts out to tell; yet this does not mean that every detail is to be described, even to setting forth whether the heroine wears hose-supporters or round garters. Now, in case this journal _should_ be secreted in the attic and found years hence by a mixed audience which is inclined to take offense at my mention of garters, I shall say simply, "Evil to him who evil thinketh."
So I am going to have you for my confidential friend and adviser. I say adviser advisedly, for I know of nothing which preaches a better sermon sometimes than for a person to look over certain back pages of his diary; especially _her_ diary.
When I am wicked enough to make your leaves curl up in horror, all you can do is to listen to my story and not look at me as if you thought I needed the prayers of the congregation. People who pray don"t talk about it anyway! And, if by chance, my right hand should do something handsome that it is fairly itching to tell about we can recite it all to you, knowing that you will never let it come to the ears of my left hand.
Good I may occasionally be; wicked I shall certainly be, for are not we all born in iniquity? But I hope that in after years when I read over these pages I shall not discover that it takes a s.e.xtant, a compa.s.s and an alarm clock to find out where my heart is!
CHAPTER II