LOVE

Not the child-god of our most childish past,
 Nor sympathy, nor worship, passionless;
 Nor gratitude, nor tenderest caress:
Nor the post-mortal glamor priests have cast
With "This to hope! Surrender what thou hast!"
 These are but parts and can but partly bless;
 We in our new-born common consciousness
Are learning Law and Life and Love at last.

The age-old secret of the sphinx's holding,
 Incarnate triumph, infinitely strong;
 The mother's majesty, grown wide and long,
In the full power and fire of life's unfolding;
The conscious splendor and ripe joy thereof—
 Glad world-wide, life-long service—this is Love!

ACCORDING TO SOLOMON

"'He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with his tongue,'" said Mr. Solomon Bankside to his wife Mary.

"Its the other way with a woman, I think;" she answered him, "you might put that in."

"Tut, tut, Molly," said he; "'Add not unto his words,'—do not speak lightly of the wisdom of the great king."

"I don't mean to, dear, but—when you hear it all the time"—

"'He that turneth away his ear from the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination,'" answered Mr. Bankside.

"I believe you know every one of those old Proverbs by heart," said his wife with some heat. "Now that's not disrespectful!—they are old!—and I do wish you'd forget some of them!"

He smiled at her quizzically, tossing back his heavy silver-gray hair with the gesture she had always loved. His eyes were deep blue and bright under their bushy brows; and the mouth was kind—in its iron way. "I can think of at least three to squelch you with, Molly," said he, "but I won't."

"O I know the one you want! 'A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentions woman are alike!' I'm not contentious, Solomon!"

"No, you are not," he frankly admitted. "What I really had in mind was this—'A prudent wife is from the Lord,' and 'He that findeth a wife findeth a good thing; and obtaineth favor of the Lord.'"

She ran around the table in the impulsive way years did not alter, and kissed him warmly.

"I'm not scolding you, my dear," he continued: "but if you had all the money you'd like to give away—there wouldn't be much left!"

"But look at what you spend on me!" she urged.

"That's a wise investment—as well as a deserved reward," her husband answered calmly. "'There is that scattereth and yet increaseth,' you know, my dear; 'And there is that withholdeth more than is meet—and it tendeth to poverty!' Take all you get my dear—its none too good for you."

He gave her his goodby kiss with special fondness, put on his heavy satin-lined overcoat and went to the office.

Mr. Solomon Bankside was not a Jew; though his last name suggested and his first seemed to prove it; also his proficiency in the Old Testament gave color to the idea. No, he came from Vermont; of generations of unbroken New England and old English Puritan ancestry, where the Solomons and Isaacs and Zedekiahs were only mitigated by the Standfasts and Praise-the-Lords. Pious, persistent pigheaded folk were they, down all the line.

His wife had no such simple pedigree. A streak of Huguenot blood she had (some of the best in France, though neither of them knew that), a grandmother from Albany with a Van to her name; a great grandmother with a Mac; and another with an O'; even a German cross came in somewhere. Mr. Bankside was devoted to genealogy, and had been at some pains to dig up these facts—the more he found the worse he felt, and the lower ran his opinion of Mrs. Bankside's ancestry.

She had been a fascinating girl; pretty, with the dash and piquancy of an oriole in a May apple-tree; clever and efficient in everything her swift hands touched; quite a spectacular housekeeper; and the sober, long-faced young downeasterner had married her with a sudden decision that he often wondered about in later years. So did she.

What he had not sufficiently weighed at the time, was her spirit of incorrigible independence, and a light-mindedness which, on maturer judgment, he could almost term irreligious. His conduct was based on principle, all of it; built firmly into habit and buttressed by scriptural quotations. Hers seemed to him as inconsequent as the flight of a moth. Studying it, in his solemn conscientious way, in the light of his genealogical researches, he felt that all her uncertainties were accounted for, and that the error was his—in having married too many kinds of people at once.

They had been, and were, very happy together none the less: though sometimes their happiness was a little tottery. This was one of the times. It was the day after Christmas, and Mrs. Bankside entered the big drawing room, redolent of popcorn and evergreen, and walked slowly to the corner where the fruits of yesterday were lovingly arranged; so few that she had been able to give—so many that she had received.

There were the numerous pretty interchangeable things given her by her many friends; "presents," suitable to any lady. There were the few perfectly selected ones given by the few who knew her best. There was the rather perplexing gift of Mrs. MacAvelly. There was her brother's stiff white envelope enclosing a check. There were the loving gifts of children and grand-children.

Finally there was Solomon's.

It was his custom to bestow upon her one solemn and expensive object, a boon as it were, carefully selected, after much thought and balancing of merits; but the consideration was spent on the nature of the gift—-not on the desires of the recipient. There was the piano she could not play, the statue she did not admire, the set of Dante she never read, the heavy gold bracelet, the stiff diamond brooch—and all the others. This time it was a set of sables, costing even more than she imagined.

Christmas after Christmas had these things come to her; and she stood there now, thinking of that procession of unvalued valuables, with an expression so mixed and changeful it resembled a kaleidoscope. Love for Solomon, pride in Solomon, respect for Solomon's judgment and power to pay, gratitude for his unfailing kindness and generosity, impatience with his always giving her this one big valuable permanent thing, when he knew so well that she much preferred small renewable cheap ones; her personal dislike of furs, the painful conviction that brown was not becoming to her—all these and more filled the little woman with what used to be called "conflicting emotions."

She smoothed out her brother's check, wishing as she always did that it had come before Christmas, so that she might buy more presents for her beloved people. Solomon liked to spend money on her—in his own way; but he did not like to have her spend money on him—or on anyone for that matter. She had asked her brother once, if he would mind sending her his Christmas present beforehand.

"Not on your life, Polly!" he said. "You'd never see a cent of it! You can't buy 'em many things right on top of Christmas, and it'll be gone long before the next one."

She put the check away and turned to examine her queerest gift. Upon which scrutiny presently entered the donor.

"I'm ever so much obliged, Benigna," said Mrs. Bankside. "You know how I love to do things. It's a loom, isn't it? Can you show me how it works?"

"Of course I can, my dear; that's just what I ran in for—I was afraid you wouldn't know. But you are so clever with your hands that I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I do."

Whereat Mrs. MacAvelly taught Mrs. Bankside the time-honored art of weaving. And Mrs. Bankside enjoyed it more than any previous handicraft she had essayed.

She did it well, beginning with rather coarse and simple weaves; and gradually learning the finer grades of work. Despising as she did the more modern woolens, she bought real wool yarn of a lovely red—and made some light warm flannelly stuff in which she proceeded to rapturously enclose her little grandchildren.

Mr. Bankside warmly approved, murmuring affectionately, "'She seeketh wool and flax—she worketh willingly with her hands.'"

He watched little Bob and Polly strenuously "helping" the furnace man to clear the sidewalk, hopping about like red-birds in their new caps and coats; and his face beamed with the appositeness of his quotation, as he remarked, "She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet!" and he proffered an extra, wholly spontaneous kiss, which pleased her mightily.

"You dear man!" she said with a hug; "I believe you'd rather find a proverb to fit than a gold mine!"

To which he triumphantly responded: "'Wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.'"

She laughed sweetly at him. "And do you think wisdom stopped with that string of proverbs?"

"You can't get much beyond it," he answered calmly. "If we lived up to all there is in that list we shouldn't be far out, my dear!"

Whereat she laughed again smoothed his gray mane, and kissed him in the back of his neck. "You dear thing!" said Mrs. Bankside.

She kept herself busy with the new plaything as he called it. Hands that had been rather empty were now smoothly full. Her health was better, and any hint of occasional querulousness disappeared entirely; so that her husband was moved to fresh admiration of her sunny temper, and quoted for the hundredth time, "'She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness.'"

Mrs. MacAvelly taught her to make towels. But Mrs. Bankside's skill outstripped hers; she showed inventive genius and designed patterns of her own. The fineness and quality of the work increased; and she joyfully replenished her linen chest with her own handiwork.

"I tell you, my dear," said Mrs. MacAvelly, "if you'd be willing to sell them you could get almost any price for those towels. With the initials woven in. I know I could get you orders—through the Woman's Exchange, you know!"

Mrs. Bankside was delighted. "What fun!" she said. "And I needn't appear at all?"

"No, you needn't appear at all—do let me try."

So Mrs. Bankside made towels of price, soft, fine, and splendid, till she was weary of them; and in the opulence of constructive genius fell to devising woven belts of elaborate design.

These were admired excessively. All her women friends wanted one, or more; the Exchange got hold of it, there was a distinct demand; and finally Mrs. MacAvelly came in one day with a very important air and a special order.

"I don't know what you'll think, my dear," she said, "but I happen to know the Percy's very well—the big store people, you know; and Mr. Percy was talking about those belts of yours to me;—of course he didn't know they are yours; but he said (the Exchange people told him I knew, you see) he said, 'If you can place an order with that woman, I can take all she'll make and pay her full price for them. Is she poor?' he asked. 'Is she dependent on her work?' And I told him, 'Not altogether.' And I think he thinks it an interesting case! Anyhow, there's the order. Will you do it?'

Mrs. Bankside was much excited. She wanted to very much, but dreaded offending her husband. So far she had not told him of her quiet trade in towels; but hid and saved this precious money—the first she had ever earned.

The two friends discussed the pros and cons at considerable length; and finally with some perturbation, she decided to accept the order.

"You'll never tell, Benigna!" she urged. "Solomon would never forgive me, I'm afraid."

"Why of course I won't—you needn't have a moment's fear of it. You give them to me—I'll stop with the carriage you see; and I take them to the Exchange—and he gets them from there."

"It seems like smuggling!" said Mrs. Bankside delightedly. "I always did love to smuggle!"

"They say women have no conscience about laws, don't they?" Mrs.
MacAvelly suggested.

"Why should we?" answered her friend. "We don't make 'em—nor God—nor nature. Why on earth should we respect a set of silly rules made by some men one day and changed by some more the next?"

"Bless us, Polly! Do you talk to Mr. Bankside like that?"

"Indeed I don't!" answered her hostess, holding out a particularly beautiful star-patterned belt to show to advantage. "There are lots of things I don't say to Mr. Bankside—'A man of understanding holdeth his peace' you know—or a woman."

She was a pretty creature, her hair like that of a powdered marchioness, her rosy checks and firm slight figure suggesting a charmer in Dresden china.

Mrs. MacAvelly regarded her admiringly. "'Where there is no wood the fire goeth out; so where there is no tale bearer the strife ceaseth,'" she proudly offered, "I can quote that much myself."

But Mrs. Bankside had many misgivings as she pursued her audacious way; the busy hours flying away from her, and the always astonishing checks flying toward her in gratifying accumulation. She came down to her well-planned dinners gracious and sweet; always effectively dressed; spent the cosy quiet evenings with her husband, or went out with him, with a manner of such increased tenderness and charm that his heart warmed anew to the wife of his youth; and he even relented a little toward her miscellaneous ancestors.

As the days shortened and darkened she sparkled more and more; with little snatches of song now and then; gay ineffectual strumming on the big piano; sudden affectionate darts at him, with quaintly distributed caresses.

"Molly!" said he, "I don't believe you're a day over twenty! What makes you act so?"

"Don't you like it, So?" she asked him. That was the nearest she ever would approximate to his name.

He did like it, naturally, and even gave her an extra ten dollars to buy Christmas presents with; while he meditated giving her an electric runabout;—to her!—who was afraid of a wheelbarrow!

When the day arrived and the family were gathered together, Mrs. Bankside, wearing the diamond brooch, the gold bracelet, the point lace handkerchief—everything she could carry of his accumulated generosity—and such an air of triumphant mystery that the tree itself was dim beside her; handed out to her astonished relatives such an assortment of desirable articles that they found no words to express their gratitude.

"Why, Mother!" said Jessie, whose husband was a minister and salaried as such, "Why, Mother—how did you know we wanted just that kind of a rug!—and a sewing-machine too! And this lovely suit—and—and—why Mother!"

But her son-in-law took her aside and kissed her solemnly. He had wanted that particular set of sociological books for years—and never hoped to get them; or that bunch of magazines either.

Nellie had "married rich;" she was less ostentatiously favored; but she had shown her thankfulness a week ago—when her mother had handed her a check.

"Sh, sh! my dear!" her mother had said, "Not one word. I know! What pleasant weather we're having."

This son-in-law was agreeably surprised, too; and the other relatives, married and single; while the children rioted among their tools and toys, taking this Christmas like any other, as a season of unmitigated joy.

Mr. Solomon Bankside looked on with growing amazement, making computations in his practiced mind; saying nothing whatever. Should he criticize his wife before others?

But when his turn came—when gifts upon gifts were offered to him—sets of silken handkerchiefs (he couldn't bear the touch of a silk handkerchief!), a cabinet of cards and chips and counters of all sorts (he never played cards), an inlaid chess-table and ivory men (the game was unknown to him), a gorgeous scarf-pin (he abominated jewelery), a five pound box of candy (he never ate it), his feelings so mounted within him, that since he would not express, and could not repress them, he summarily went up stairs to his room.

She found him there later, coming in blushing, smiling, crying a little too—like a naughty but charming child.

He swallowed hard as he looked at her; and his voice was a little strained.

"I can take a joke as well as any man, Molly. I guess we're square on that. But—my dear!—where did you get it?"

"Earned it," said she, looking down, and fingering her lace handkerchief.

"Earned it! My wife, earning money! How—if I may ask?"

"By my weaving, dear—the towels and the belts—I sold 'em. Don't be angry—nobody knows—my name didn't appear at all! Please don't be angry!—It isn't wicked, and it was such fun!"

"No—it's not wicked, I suppose," said he rather grimly. "But it is certainly a most mortifying and painful thing to me—most unprecedented."

"Not so unprecedented, Dear," she urged, "Even the woman you think most of did it! Don't you remember 'She maketh fine linen and selleth it—and delivereth girdles unto the merchants!'"

Mr. Bankside came down handsomely.

He got used to it after a while, and then he became proud of it. If a friend ventured to suggest a criticism, or to sympathize, he would calmly respond, "'The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.'"

AN OBVIOUS BLESSING

We are told, on the authority of the Greatest Sociologist, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

So patent and commonplace a fact as this ought to meet with general acceptance. Anyone can see that it is so, by a little study or by less practice. To give implies having. You must be in possession before you can give. To receive implies wanting, at its best—to receive what you do not want is distinctly unpleasant. To have is more blessed than to want. Of course it is.

To give gratifies several natural feelings; the mother-instinct of supplying needs, the pride of superior power and the generosity; and, if you are a sordid soul, the desire to "lay up treasure in heaven" or, as the Buddhists frankly put it—to "acquire merit."

None of these pleasures pertain to receiving. There is a certain humiliation about it always, a childish sense of dependence and inferiority. Only children can continuously receive without degradation; and as soon as they begin to realize life at all they delight to give as we all do. "Let me help!" says the child, and plans birthday presents for mama as eagerly as he hopes for them himself.

The instinct of giving is the pressure of the surplus; the natural outgo of humanity, its fruit. We are not mere receptacles, we are productive engines, of immense capacity; and, having produced, we must distribute the product. To give, naturally, is to shed, to bear fruit; a healthy and pleasurable process.

What has confused us so long on this subject? Why have we been so blind to this glaring truth that we have stultified our giving instinct and made of it an abnormal process called "Charity," or a much restricted pleasure only used in families or at Christmas time?

Two things have combined to prevent our easy acceptance of this visible truth; one the time-honored custom of "sacrifice," and the other our ignorance of social economics.

Sacrificing is not giving. That black remnant of lowest savagery dates back to the time when a pursuing beast was placated by the surrender of something, or somebody; and a conqueror bought off by tribute. The medicine man made play with this race habit, and gross idols were soothed and placated by sacrifices—on which the medicine man lived. Always the best and finest were taken naturally by the hungry beast; as naturally by the greedy conqueror; and not unnaturally by the dependent priesthood. Sacrificing is a forced surrender with personal hope as the reason. It is not giving.

Our economic ignorance and confusion is partly based on this same old period of cruelty and darkness. Labor was extorted as the price of life; and the fruits of labor taken by force through warring centuries. A guarded and grudging system of exchange gradually developed; the robbing instinct slowly simmering down to legally limited extortion; but each party surrendering his goods reluctantly, and only with the purpose of gaining more than he lost. Here also is the basic spirit of sacrifice—to get something now or in the far future—always the trading spirit at the bottom. Selling is not giving.

The real basis of giving is motherhood; and that is merely the orderly expression of life's progressive force. Living forms must increase—spread—grow—improve. The biological channel for this force is through mother-love; and, later, father-love. The sociological channel is in the pouring flood of productive activity, which fills the world with human fruit—the million things we make and do.

This ceaseless output is not dragged out of us as a sacrifice, it is not produced by want and hunger and the grasping spirit of exchange. It is the natural expression of social energy; blossoming in every form of art, stirring the brain to ceaseless action, filling the world with the rich fruit of human handiwork.

Having produced, we must distribute—we must discharge, we must give.

To be human is to be a producer, to make, to do, to have some output either in goods or services whereby the sum of welfare is increased. To have this productive energy and to use it normally, is to give. Not to have it, not to use it, is not to be human—to be a minus quantity; to live parasitically on the labor of others—to receive.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

STEPS

I was a slave, because I could not see
That work for one another is our law;
I hated law. I work? I would be free!
Therefore the heavy law laid hands on me
And I was forced to work in slavery—
 Until I saw.

I was a hireling, for I could not see
That work was natural as the breath I drew,
Natural? I would not work without the fee!
So nature laid her heavy hands on me
And I was forced by fear of poverty—
 Until I knew.

Now I am free. Life is new-seen, recast
To work is to enjoy, to love, to live!
The shame and pain of slavery are past,
Dishonor and extortion follow fast,
I am not owned, nor hired, full-born at last,
 My power I give.

WHY WE HONESTLY FEAR SOCIALISM

A peaceable elderly Englishman of a bald and scholarly aspect, inquired, following a lecture on Socialism, "Will the speaker state in one sentence what Socialism is?" He wore an air of mild gentlemanly triumph; apparently imagining that he had demanded the impossible.

But the speaker, seeming unconscious of any difficulty replied, "Certainly; Socialism is the public ownership of all natural monopolies and the means of production."

This simple definition is advanced to start with, that we may know what we are talking about. This is the essence of Socialism—public ownership of public things; the real point at issue being "What things are public?"

The vast majority of us do not yet understand this easy and clear definition; and no wonder; for the Socialists themselves are for the most part so lost in grief over the sufferings of the poor and in rage over the misbehavior of the rich, that they find it hard to speak gently. Most of us, having but vague ideas of Socialism, fear it on several grounds, some of them easily removable as mere mistakes; others requiring careful treatment.

The mistakes are these:

ERROR I. "Socialism will abolish private property."

ANSWER. Quite wrong. It will do no such thing. You are thinking of Communism. The early Communists, like the early Christians, held all things in common, but Socialism urges no such doctrine. It does, however, restrict our definition of what is private property; just as was done when human slavery was abolished.

Slavery was once universal, and still exists In many countries. It was held legal and honest to personally own human beings—they were property. In our great civil contest of half a century since, the north—from a southern point of view—confiscated property when the slaves were freed. But from the northern point of view the slave was not property at all. This is a very vivid instance of change of opinion on property rights. Such "rights" are wholly of our own making; and change from age to age.

Parents once held property rights in children and men "owned" their wives; they could be punished, imprisoned, sold—even killed, at will of the owner. The larger public sense has long since said, "Women and children are not private property."

Laws about property are not God's laws; not Nature's laws; they are just rules and regulations people make from time to time according to their standards of justice. There is nothing novel in proposing to change them—they have often been changed. There is nothing immoral or dangerous in changing them; it is constantly done in all legislatures, in varying degree, as when private estates are "condemned" for public use.

Socialism advances the idea that private property rights do not legitimately apply to public necessities like coal, water, oil and land. As a matter of fact we do not really "own" land now—we only rent it of the government, calling our rent "taxes." If we do not pay our rent the government gets it again, like any other owner.

The utmost restriction of private property under Socialism leaves us still every article of personal use and pleasure. One may still "own" land by paying the government for it as now; with such taxation, however, as would make it very expensive to own too much! One may own one's house and all that is in it; one's clothes and tools and decorations; one's horses, carriages and automobiles; one's flying machines—presently. All "personal property" remains in our personal hands.

But no man or group of men could own the country's coal and decide how much the public can have, and what we must pay for it. Private holding of public property would be abolished.

ERROR 2. Socialism would reduce us all to a dead level.

ANSWER. Quite wrong. Eating at the same table in the same family does not reduce brothers and sisters to the same level; some remain far smarter and stronger than others. By a wiser system of education we may greatly increase the difference in people—Socialism would not hinder it. A higher average level of income—which is what Socialism ensures, will give people a chance to differ more than they do now. Our machine-like educational system, long hours of labor, specialized monotony of mill work, and "the iron law of wages" do tend to reduce us to a dead level. Socialism does not.

ERROR 3. Socialists are atheists.

ANSWER. How anyone can say this when they know of the immense organization of Christian Socialists is amazing; but then it is always amazing to see how queerly people think. Some Socialists are atheists. So are some monarchists and some republicans. A Socialist may be an atheist, or a homeopathist, or a Holy Roller—it has nothing to do with Socialism.

ERROR 4. Socialists are immoral.

ANSWER. Again—some are; but so are some other people. The immorality of which we hear most in the papers is by no means that of Socialists; but of most prominent capitalists.

ERROR 5. Socialism is unnatural—you must "alter human nature" before it would be possible.

ANSWER. This is a very common position, based like most of the foregoing, on lack of understanding. It assumes that Socialism requires a state of sublime unselfishness and mutual deference, in which all men are willing to work for nothing. But why assume this? It is no product of Socialism. Our socialistic public parks and libraries do not presuppose that people shall be angels. They may tend to make them such, but the progress is not rapid enough to alarm us. In regard to this particular error we should learn that Socialism is not a totally new and different scheme of things; but a gradual and legitimate extension of previous tendencies. Human nature is socialistic—and is progressively extending socialism.

ERROR 5. Socialism will pay every one alike and so destroy the incentive of personal ambition.

ANSWER. This idea of equal payment is not Socialism. Some socialists hold it—more do not. The essential idea of public ownership and management of public property does not include this notion of equal payment.

ERROR 7. Socialism will destroy competition. Competition, most of us believe, "is the life of trade;" in other words we are supposed to work, not merely to get something for ourselves, but to get ahead of other people.

ANSWER. Admitting that we do; admitting that such an incentive is useful; the simple answer is that Socialism would not destroy competition.

Even in financial reward some would still be paid more than others; and far beyond this lies the larger competition for fame and glory and public esteem, which has always moved men more strongly than the love of money. This remains always open.

MAIN ERROR. Passing over all these minor objections, due to mere ignorance and easily understood, we come to the one major objection, honestly held by intelligent people; that under Socialism people would not work. This is why so many good and intelligent persons do honestly distrust and fear it. Their position is this:

PREMISE A. Work must be done to keep civilization going. Work is done by individuals in order to get something they want. Work would not be done by anyone without the immediate stimulus of personal desire.

PREMISE B. Socialism, in some mysterious way will supply the needs of the people gratuitously.

CONCLUSION. The people being so provided for would not work. Then follows the downfall of civilization.

This is the honest opinion of the individualist, the older economist, and is entitled to respect and fair answer.

If the premises were correct the terrible conclusion would be correct, and the Socialist position visionary and dangerous. Of course people are afraid of anything that controverts the laws of economics and human nature—they ought to be. But are those premises correct?

To remove the easiest one first let us observe the absurdity of the idea, that Socialism will provide for people without their working. Provide them with what, pray? All wealth is produced by human labor—there is no socialist patent for drawing bread and circuses from the sky. People must always and forever work for what they have, and have in proportion to the quantity and quality of their work.

So thoroughly is this true that the socialist grieves to see so many people living to-day without working; receiving wealth out of all proportion to their usefulness. If this was common to all of us it would mean the downfall of civilization. As we live now a great many people work too hard, too long, under unsanitary conditions, a sort of living sacrifice to the rest of the world; and a few people do visibly and ostentatiously consume and waste the very things the workers so painfully lack.

Socialism claims to ensure decent payment for all labor, and see that we all receive it—all of us; not the same for everyone; but enough for everyone. Further, Socialism claims that by such procedure the quantity and quality of human work would be improved; that more wealth would be produced—far more.

By thus removing Premise B, Premise A becomes a non sequitur. We will, however, remove this also, to make a clean sweep.

It is not true that work is only done in order to get something. Some work is done that way by some people. But it is not the only kind of work—and they are not the only kind of people. Even the savage, having exerted himself to get his dinner, and having had his dinner, and being, in a small way, human, begins to exert himself further to decorate his tools and weapons, his canoes and totem poles—because he likes to. Nobody pays him for it. He enjoys the act of doing it, and the results.

The reason any ordinary man prefers any one kind of work to another is that he experiences a certain pleasure in the performance of certain actions—more than others. He is beginning to specialize.

The reason the highly specialized social servant, artist, teacher, preacher, scientific student, true physician, inventor, chooses his work, follows it often under disadvantages; and in the case of the enthusiast, even under conditions of danger, pain and death—is that he likes that kind of work, enjoys doing it, indeed has to do it—is uncomfortable if prevented.

This is a social instinct which our earlier economists have not recognized. It is proven an instinct by the fact that children have it—all normal children. They like any kind of ordinary work, want to learn how, want to help, long before they attach any idea of gain to the labor.

The little girl in the kitchen wants to make cookies—as well as eat them; longs to print little figures around the pies, and then hold the plate on poised spread fingers and trim off that long broken ribbon of superfluous pastry—wants to do things, as well as to have things. The one instinct is as natural as the other.

The reasons so many of us to-day hate and despise work, avoid it, give it up as soon as possible, are simple and clear. First because of the cruel difficulties with which we have loaded what should be a pleasure—the monotony, the long hours, the disagreeable surroundings, the danger and early death, and the grossly insufficient pay. Any normal boy enjoys working with carpenter's tools, or blacksmith's tools; enjoys running a machine; but when such work is saddled with the above conditions, he does not like it. Of course. It is not the work we are averse to, it is what goes with it;—difficulties of our own making.

Further; besides the physical disadvantages, we have loaded this great natural process of human labor with a mass of superstitions and degrading lies. The lazy old orientals called it a curse! Work, a curse! Work; which is the essential process of human life; man's natural function and means of growth!

We have despised it because women did it. Glory to the women—without them we should have had no industry. We have despised it because slaves did it. Glory to the slaves! They built the pyramids—not Cheops. They built every one of the marvelous relics and ruins of the past—the slaves built Athens!

We despise it now because the low and ignorant do it. If there was ever an instance of consummate folly, of churlish ingratitude, it is our general attitude toward work and the workers. Here are three millions of laboring benefactors; feeding us; clothing us; building our houses; spinning and weaving and sewing for us;—hewing wood and drawing water;—keeping the world alive and moving; and we look down on the work and the workers. As we are not really brutes and fools, how is this absurd position to be accounted for?

By that old fallacy of Premise A. "They are only doing it for themselves," we say. "They are paid for what they do. They wouldn't do it if they weren't paid for it!" That is the vital core of the real opposition to Socialism, this erroneous economic idea about work.

If that can ever be changed, if we can look at work with new eyes, then we can look at Socialism with new eyes too; and not be afraid. Then cautiously and rationally, we shall say:

"So this new system of yours proposes to increase human wealth, does it? To promote and develop all kinds of legitimate work and to distribute the product so as to improve the people? That sounds pretty good to me. But how do you know you can do it? I'm from Missouri myself—you'll have to show me."

And then perhaps our wiser Socialists will appeal to the people as a whole, of every grade and class; and teach the natural orderly development of this simple and practical system of economics; teach its splendid benefits to all classes; and the methods of its legitimate and gradual introduction; by careful massing of the facts; by visible proof of things already accomplished. They must show us that we are not facing a great leap in the dark, but clear straight steps in the light, in the orderly progress of social evolution.

CHILD LABOR

The children in the Poor House
 May die of many an ill,
But the Poor House does not profit
 By their labor in the mill!

The children in the Orphanage
 Wear raiment far from fine,
But no Orphanage is financed
 By child labor in a mine.

The Cruel Law may send them
 To Reform School's iron sway,
But it does not set small children
 To hard labor by the day.

Only the Loving Family,
 Which we so much admire,
Is willing to support itself
 On little children's hire.

Only the Human Father,
 A man, with power to think,
Will take from little children
 The price of food and drink.

Only the Human Mother—
 Degraded, helpless thing!
Will make her little children work
 And live on what they bring!

No fledgling feeds the father-bird!
 No chicken feeds the hen!
No kitten mouses for the cat—
 This glory is for men.

We are the Wisest, Strongest Race—
 Loud my our praise be sung!—
The only animal alive
 That lives upon its young!

We make the poverty that takes
 The lives of babies so.
We can awake! rebuild! remake!—
 And let our children grow!

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER II.

AN UNNATURAL DAUGHTER

The brooding bird fulfills her task,
 Or she-bear lean and brown;
All parent beasts see duty true,
All parent beasts their duty do,
We are the only kind that asks
 For duty upside down.

The stiff-rayed windmill stood like a tall mechanical flower, turning slowly in the light afternoon wind; its faint regular metallic squeak pricked the dry silence wearingly. Rampant fuchsias, red-jewelled, heavy, ran up its framework, with crowding heliotrope and nasturtiums. Thick straggling roses hung over the kitchen windows, and a row of dusty eucalyptus trees rustled their stiff leaves, and gave an ineffectual shade to the house.

It was one of those small frame houses common to the northeastern states, which must be dear to the hearts of their dwellers. For no other reason, surely, would the cold grey steep-roofed little boxes be repeated so faithfully in the broad glow of a semi-tropical landscape. There was an attempt at a "lawn," the pet ambition of the transplanted easterner; and a further attempt at "flower-beds," which merely served as a sort of springboard to their far-reaching products.

The parlor, behind the closed blinds, was as New England parlors are; minus the hint of cosiness given by even a fireless stove; the little bedrooms baked under the roof; only the kitchen spoke of human living, and the living it portrayed was not, to say the least, joyous. It was clean, clean with a cleanness that spoke of conscientious labor and unremitting care. The zinc mat under the big cook-stove was scoured to a dull glimmer, while that swart altar itself shone darkly from its daily rubbing.

There was no dust nor smell of dust; no grease spots, no litter anywhere. But the place bore no atmosphere of contented pride, as does a Dutch, German or French kitchen, it spoke of Labor, Economy and Duty—under restriction.

In the dead quiet of the afternoon Diantha and her mother sat there sewing. The sun poured down through the dangling eucalyptus leaves. The dry air, rich with flower odors, flowed softly in, pushing the white sash curtains a steady inch or two. Ee-errr!—Ee-errr!—came the faint whine of the windmill.

To the older woman rocking in her small splint chair by the rose-draped window, her thoughts dwelling on long dark green grass, the shade of elms, and cows knee-deep in river-shallows; this was California—hot, arid, tedious in endless sunlight—a place of exile.

To the younger, the long seam of the turned sheet pinned tightly to her knee, her needle flying firmly and steadily, and her thoughts full of pouring moonlight through acacia boughs and Ross's murmured words, it was California—rich, warm, full of sweet bloom and fruit, of boundless vitality, promise, and power—home!

Mrs. Bell drew a long weary sigh, and laid down her work for a moment.

"Why don't you stop it Mother dear? There's surely no hurry about these things."

"No—not particularly," her mother answered, "but there's plenty else to do." And she went on with the long neat hemming. Diantha did the "over and over seam" up the middle.

"What do you do it for anyway, Mother—I always hated this job—and you don't seem to like it."

"They wear almost twice as long, child, you know. The middle gets worn and the edges don't. Now they're reversed. As to liking it—" She gave a little smile, a smile that was too tired to be sarcastic, but which certainly did not indicate pleasure.

"What kind of work do you like best—really?" her daughter inquired suddenly, after a silent moment or two.

"Why—I don't know," said her mother. "I never thought of it. I never tried any but teaching. I didn't like that. Neither did your Aunt Esther, but she's still teaching."

"Didn't you like any of it?" pursued Diantha.

"I liked arithmetic best. I always loved arithmetic, when I went to school—used to stand highest in that."

"And what part of housework do you like best?" the girl persisted.

Mrs. Bell smiled again, wanly. "Seems to me sometimes as if I couldn't tell sometimes what part I like least!" she answered. Then with sudden heat—"O my Child! Don't you marry till Ross can afford at least one girl for you!"

Diantha put her small, strong hands behind her head and leaned back in her chair. "We'll have to wait some time for that I fancy," she said. "But, Mother, there is one part you like—keeping accounts! I never saw anything like the way you manage the money, and I believe you've got every bill since yon were married."

"Yes—I do love accounts," Mrs. Bell admitted. "And I can keep run of things. I've often thought your Father'd have done better if he'd let me run that end of his business."

Diantha gave a fierce little laugh. She admired her father in some ways, enjoyed him in some ways, loved him as a child does if not ill-treated; but she loved her mother with a sort of passionate pity mixed with pride; feeling always nobler power in her than had ever had a fair chance to grow. It seemed to her an interminable dull tragedy; this graceful, eager, black-eyed woman, spending what to the girl was literally a lifetime, in the conscientious performance of duties she did not love.

She knew her mother's idea of duty, knew the clear head, the steady will, the active intelligence holding her relentlessly to the task; the chafe and fret of seeing her husband constantly attempting against her judgment, and failing for lack of the help he scorned. Young as she was, she realized that the nervous breakdown of these later years was wholly due to that common misery of "the square man in the round hole."

She folded her finished sheet in accurate lines and laid it away—taking her mother's also. "Now you sit still for once, Mother dear, read or lie down. Don't you stir till supper's ready."

And from pantry to table she stepped, swiftly and lightly, setting out what was needed, greased her pans and set them before her, and proceeded to make biscuit.

Her mother watched her admiringly. "How easy you do it!" she said. "I never could make bread without getting flour all over me. You don't spill a speck!"

Diantha smiled. "I ought to do it easily by this time. Father's got to have hot bread for supper—or thinks he has!—and I've made 'em—every night when I was at home for this ten years back!"

"I guess you have," said Mrs. Bell proudly. "You were only eleven when you made your first batch. I can remember just as well! I had one of my bad headaches that night—and it did seem as if I couldn't sit up! But your Father's got to have his biscuit whether or no. And you said, 'Now Mother you lie right still on that sofa and let me do it! I can!' And you could!—you did! They were bettern' mine that first time—and your Father praised 'em—and you've been at it ever since."

"Yes," said Diantha, with a deeper note of feeling than her mother caught, "I've been at it ever since!"

"Except when you were teaching school," pursued her mother.

"Except when I taught school at Medville," Diantha corrected. "When I taught here I made 'em just the same."

"So you did," agreed her mother. "So you did! No matter how tired you were—you wouldn't admit it. You always were the best child!"

"If I was tired it was not of making biscuits anyhow. I was tired enough of teaching school though. I've got something to tell you, presently, Mother."

She covered the biscuits with a light cloth and set them on the shelf over the stove; then poked among the greasewood roots to find what she wanted and started a fire. "Why don't you get an oil stove? Or a gasoline? It would be a lot easier."

"Yes," her mother agreed. "I've wanted one for twenty years; but you know your Father won't have one in the house. He says they're dangerous. What are you going to tell me, dear? I do hope you and Ross haven't quarrelled."

"No indeed we haven't, Mother. Ross is splendid. Only—"

"Only what, Dinah?"

"Only he's so tied up!" said the girl, brushing every chip from the hearth. "He's perfectly helpless there, with that mother of his—and those four sisters."

"Ross is a good son," said Mrs. Bell, "and a good brother. I never saw a better. He's certainly doing his duty. Now if his father'd lived you two could have got married by this time maybe, though you're too young yet."

Diantha washed and put away the dishes she had used, saw that the pantry was in its usual delicate order, and proceeded to set the table, with light steps and no clatter of dishes.

"I'm twenty-one," she said.

"Yes, you're twenty-one," her mother allowed. "It don't seem possible, but you are. My first baby!" she looked at her proudly

"If Ross has to wait for all those girls to marry—and to pay his father's debts—I'll be old enough," said Diantha grimly.

Her mother watched her quick assured movements with admiration, and listened with keen sympathy. "I know it's hard, dear child. You've only been engaged six months—and it looks as if it might be some years before Ross'll be able to marry. He's got an awful load for a boy to carry alone."

"I should say he had!" Diantha burst forth. "Five helpless women!—or three women, and two girls. Though Cora's as old as I was when I began to teach. And not one of 'em will lift a finger to earn her own living."

"They weren't brought up that way," said Mrs. Bell. "Their mother don't approve of it. She thinks the home is the place for a woman—and so does Ross—and so do I," she added rather faintly.

Diantha put her pan of white puff-balls into the oven, sliced a quantity of smoked beef in thin shavings, and made white sauce for it, talking the while as if these acts were automatic. "I don't agree with Mrs. Warden on that point, nor with Ross, nor with you, Mother," she said, "What I've got to tell you is this—I'm going away from home. To work."

Mrs. Bell stopped rocking, stopped fanning, and regarded her daughter with wide frightened eyes.

"Why Diantha!" she said. "Why Diantha! You wouldn't go and leave your
Mother!"

Diantha drew a deep breath and stood for a moment looking at the feeble little woman in the chair. Then she went to her, knelt down and hugged her close—close.

"It's not because I don't love you, Mother. It's because I do. And it's not because I don't love Ross either:—it's because I do. I want to take care of you, Mother, and make life easier for you as long as you live. I want to help him—to help carry that awful load—and I'm going—to—do—it!"

She stood up hastily, for a step sounded on the back porch. It was only her sister, who hurried in, put a dish on the table, kissed her mother and took another rocking-chair.

"I just ran in," said she, "to bring those berries. Aren't they beauties? The baby's asleep. Gerald hasn't got in yet. Supper's all ready, and I can see him coming time enough to run back. Why, Mother! What's the matter? You're crying!"

"Am I?" asked Mrs. Bell weakly; wiping her eyes in a dazed way.

"What are you doing to Mother, Diantha?" demanded young Mrs. Peters. "Bless me! I thought you and she never had any differences! I was always the black sheep, when I was at home. Maybe that's why I left so early!"

She looked very pretty and complacent, this young matron and mother of nineteen; and patted the older woman's hand affectionately, demanding, "Come—what's the trouble?"

"You might as well know now as later," said her sister. "I have decided to leave home, that's all."

"To leave home!" Mrs. Peters sat up straight and stared at her. "To leave home!—And Mother!"

"Well?" said Diantha, while the tears rose and ran over from her mother's eyes. "Well, why not? You left home—and Mother—before you were eighteen."

"That's different!" said her sister sharply. "I left to be married,—to have a home of my own. And besides I haven't gone far! I can see Mother every day."

"That's one reason I can go now better than later on," Diantha said.
"You are close by in case of any trouble."

"What on earth are you going for? Ross isn't ready to marry yet, is he?"

"No—nor likely to be for years. That's another reason I'm going."

"But what for, for goodness sake."

"To earn money—for one thing."

"Can't you earn money enough by teaching?" the Mother broke in eagerly. "I know you haven't got the same place this fall—but you can get another easy enough."

Diantha shook her head. "No, Mother, I've had enough of that. I've taught for four years. I don't like it, I don't do well, and it exhausts me horribly. And I should never get beyond a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a year if I taught for a lifetime."

"Well, I declare!" said her sister. "What do you expect to get? I should think fifteen hundred dollars a year was enough for any woman!"

Diantha peered into the oven and turned her biscuit pan around.

"And you're meaning to leave home just to make money, are you?"

"Why not?" said Diantha firmly. "Henderson did—when he was eighteen.
None of you blamed him."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it," her mother ventured. "Henderson's a boy, and boys have to go, of course. A mother expects that. But a girl—Why, Diantha! How can I get along without you! With my health!"

"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself to think of such a thing!" said young Mrs. Peters.

A slow step sounded outside, and an elderly man, tall, slouching, carelessly dressed, entered, stumbling a little over the rag-mat at the door.

"Father hasn't got used to that rug in fourteen years!" said his youngest daughter laughingly. "And Mother will straighten it out after him! I'm bringing Gerald up on better principles. You should just see him wait on me!"

"A man should be master in his own household," Mr. Bell proclaimed, raising a dripping face from the basin and looking around for the towel—which his wife handed him.

"You won't have much household to be master of presently," said Mrs.
Peters provokingly. "Half of it's going to leave."

Mr. Bell came out of his towel and looked from one to the other for some explanation of this attempted joke, "What nonsense are you talking?" he demanded.

"I think it's nonsense myself," said the pretty young woman—her hand on the doorknob. "But you'd better enjoy those biscuits of Di's while you can—you won't get many more! There's Gerald—good night!" And off she ran.

Diantha set the plateful on the table, puffy, brown, and crisply crusted. "Supper's ready," she said. "Do sit down, Mother," and she held the chair for her. "Minnie's quite right, Father, though I meant not to tell you till you'd had supper. I am going away to work."

Mr. Bell regarded his daughter with a stern, slow stare; not so much surprised as annoyed by an untimely jesting. He ate a hot biscuit in two un-Fletcherized mouthfuls, and put more sugar in his large cup of tea. "You've got your Mother all worked up with your nonsense," said he. "What are you talking about anyway?"

Diantha met his eyes unflinchingly. He was a tall old man, still handsome and impressive in appearance, had been the head of his own household beyond question, ever since he was left the only son of an idolizing mother. But he had never succeeded in being the head of anything else. Repeated failures in the old New England home had resulted in his ruthlessly selling all the property there; and bringing his delicate wife and three young children to California. Vain were her protests and objections. It would do her good—best place in the world for children—good for nervous complaints too. A wife's duty was to follow her husband, of course. She had followed, willy nilly; and it was good for the children—there was no doubt of that.

Mr. Bell had profited little by his venture. They had the ranch, the flowers and fruit and ample living of that rich soil; but he had failed in oranges, failed in raisins, failed in prunes, and was now failing in wealth-promising hens.

But Mrs. Bell, though an ineffectual housekeeper, did not fail in the children. They had grown up big and vigorous, sturdy, handsome creatures, especially the two younger ones. Diantha was good-looking enough. Roscoe Warden thought her divinely beautiful. But her young strength had been heavily taxed from childhood in that complex process known as "helping mother." As a little child she had been of constant service in caring for the babies; and early developed such competence in the various arts of house work as filled her mother with fond pride, and even wrung from her father some grudging recognition. That he did not value it more was because he expected such competence in women, all women; it was their natural field of ability, their duty as wives and mothers. Also as daughters. If they failed in it that was by illness or perversity. If they succeeded—that was a matter of course.

He ate another of Diantha's excellent biscuits, his greyish-red whiskers slowly wagging; and continued to eye her disapprovingly. She said nothing, but tried to eat; and tried still harder to make her heart go quietly, her cheeks keep cool, and her eyes dry. Mrs. Bell also strove to keep a cheerful countenance; urged food upon her family; even tried to open some topic of conversation; but her gentle words trailed off into unnoticed silence.

Mr. Bell ate until he was satisfied and betook himself to a comfortable chair by the lamp, where he unfolded the smart local paper and lit his pipe. "When you've got through with the dishes, Diantha," he said coldly, "I'll hear about this proposition of yours."

Diantha cleared the table, lowered the leaves, set it back against the wall, spreading the turkey-red cloth upon it. She washed the dishes,—her kettle long since boiling, scalded them, wiped them, set them in their places; washed out the towels, wiped the pan and hung it up, swiftly, accurately, and with a quietness that would have seemed incredible to any mistress of heavy-footed servants. Then with heightened color and firm-set mouth, she took her place by the lamplit table and sat still.

Her mother was patiently darning large socks with many holes—a kind of work she specially disliked. "You'll have to get some new socks, Father," she ventured, "these are pretty well gone."

"O they'll do a good while yet," he replied, not looking at them. "I like your embroidery, my dear."

That pleased her. She did not like to embroider, but she did like to be praised.

Diantha took some socks and set to work, red-checked and excited, but silent yet. Her mother's needle trembled irregularly under and over, and a tear or two slid down her cheeks.

Finally Mr. Bell laid down his finished paper and his emptied pipe and said, "Now then. Out with it."

This was not a felicitious opening. It is really astonishing how little diplomacy parents exhibit, how difficult they make it for the young to introduce a proposition. There was nothing for it but a bald statement, so Diantha made it baldly.

"I have decided to leave home and go to work," she said.

"Don't you have work enough to do at home?" he inquired, with the same air of quizzical superiority which had always annoyed her so intensely, even as a little child.

She would cut short this form of discussion: "I am going away to earn my living. I have given up school-teaching—I don't like it, and, there isn't money enough in it. I have plans—which will speak for themselves later."

"So," said Mr. Bell, "Plans all made, eh? I suppose you've considered your Mother in these plans?"

"I have," said his daughter. "It is largely on her account that I'm going."

"You think it'll be good for your Mother's health to lose your assistance, do you?"

"I know she'll miss me; but I haven't left the work on her shoulders. I am going to pay for a girl—to do the work I've done. It won't cost you any more, Father; and you'll save some—for she'll do the washing too. You didn't object to Henderson's going—at eighteen. You didn't object to Minnie's going—at seventeen. Why should you object to my going—at twenty-one."

"I haven't objected—so far," replied her father. "Have your plans also allowed for the affection and duty you owe your parents?"

"I have done my duty—as well as I know how," she answered. "Now I am twenty-one, and self-supporting—and have a right to go."

"O yes. You have a right—a legal right—if that's what you base your idea of a child's duty on! And while you're talking of rights—how about a parent's rights? How about common gratitude! How about what you owe to me—for all the care and pains and cost it's been to bring you up. A child's a rather expensive investment these days."

Diantha flushed. she had expected this, and yet it struck her like a blow. It was not the first time she had heard it—this claim of filial obligation.

"I have considered that position, Father. I know you feel that way—you've often made me feel it. So I've been at some pains to work it out—on a money basis. Here is an account—as full as I could make it." She handed him a paper covered with neat figures. The totals read as follows:

Miss Diantha Bell,
To Mr. Henderson R. Bell, Dr.

To medical and dental expenses . . . $110.00
To school expenses . . . $76.00
To clothing, in full . . . $1,130.00
To board and lodging at $3.00 a week . . . $2,184.00
To incidentals . . . $100.00
 ————
 $3.600.00

He studied the various items carefully, stroking his beard, half in anger, half in unavoidable amusement. Perhaps there was a tender feeling too, as he remembered that doctor's bill—the first he ever paid, with the other, when she had scarlet fever; and saw the exact price of the high chair which had served all three of the children, but of which she magnanimously shouldered the whole expense.

The clothing total was so large that it made him whistle—he knew he had never spent $1,130.00 on one girl's clothes. But the items explained it.

Materials, three years at an average of $10 a year . . . $30.00
Five years averaging $20 each year . . . $100.00
Five years averaging $30 each year . . . $50.00
Five years averaging $50 each year . . . $250.00
———-
$530.00

The rest was "Mother's labor, averaging twenty full days a year at $2 a day, $40 a year. For fifteen years, $600.00. Mother's labor—on one child's, clothes—footing up to $600.00. It looked strange to see cash value attached to that unfailing source of family comfort and advantage.

The school expenses puzzled him a bit, for she had only gone to public schools; but she was counting books and slates and even pencils—it brought up evenings long passed by, the sewing wife, the studying children, the "Say, Father, I've got to have a new slate—mine's broke!"

"Broken, Dina," her Mother would gently correct, while he demanded, "How did you break it?" and scolded her for her careless tomboy ways. Slates—three, $1.50—they were all down. And slates didn't cost so much come to think of it, even the red-edged ones, wound with black, that she always wanted.

Board and lodging was put low, at $3.00 per week, but the items had a footnote as to house-rent in the country, and food raised on the farm. Yes, he guessed that was a full rate for the plain food and bare little bedroom they always had.

"It's what Aunt Esther paid the winter she was here," said Diantha.

Circuses—three . . . $1.50
Share in melodeon . . . $50.00

Yes, she was one of five to use and enjoy it.

Music lessons . . . $30.00

And quite a large margin left here, called miscellaneous, which he smiled to observe made just an even figure, and suspected she had put in for that purpose as well as from generosity.

"This board account looks kind of funny," he said—"only fourteen years of it!"

"I didn't take table-board—nor a room—the first year—nor much the second. I've allowed $1.00 a week for that, and $2.00 for the third—that takes out two, you see. Then it's $156 a year till I was fourteen and earned board and wages, two more years at $156—and I've paid since I was seventeen, you know."

"Well—I guess you did—I guess you did." He grinned genially. "Yes," he continued slowly, "I guess that's a fair enough account. 'Cording to this, you owe me $3,600.00, young woman! I didn't think it cost that much to raise a girl."

"I know it," said she. "But here's the other side."

It was the other side. He had never once thought of such a side to the case. This account was as clear and honest as the first and full of exasperating detail. She laid before him the second sheet of figures and watched while he read, explaining hurriedly:

"It was a clear expense for ten years—not counting help with the babies. Then I began to do housework regularly—when I was ten or eleven, two hours a day; three when I was twelve and thirteen—real work you'd have had to pay for, and I've only put it at ten cents an hour. When Mother was sick the year I was fourteen, and I did it all but the washing—all a servant would have done for $3.00 a week. Ever since then I have done three hours a day outside of school, full grown work now, at twenty cents an hour. That's what we have to pay here, you know."

Thus it mounted up:

Mr. Henderson R. Bell,
To Miss Diantha Bell, Dr.

For labor and services—

Two years, two hours a day at 10c. an hour . . . $146.00
Two years, three hours a day at 10c. an hour . . . $219.00
One year, full wages at $5.00 a week . . . $260.00
Six years and a half, three hours a day at 20c . . . $1423.50
————
$2048.50

Mr. Bell meditated carefully on these figures. To think of that child's labor footing up to two thousand dollars and over! It was lucky a man had a wife and daughters to do this work, or he could never support a family.

Then came her school-teaching years. She had always been a fine scholar and he had felt very proud of his girl when she got a good school position in her eighteenth year.

California salaries were higher than eastern ones, and times had changed too; the year he taught school he remembered the salary was only $300.00—and he was a man. This girl got $600, next year $700, $800, $900; why it made $3,000 she had earned in four years. Astonishing. Out of this she had a balance in the bank of $550.00. He was pleased to see that she had been so saving. And her clothing account—little enough he admitted for four years and six months, $300.00. All incidentals for the whole time, $50.00—this with her balance made just $900. That left $2,100.00.

"Twenty-one hundred dollars unaccounted for, young lady!—besides this nest egg in the bank—I'd no idea you were so wealthy. What have you done with all that?"

"Given it to you, Father," said she quietly, and handed him the third sheet of figures.

Board and lodging at $4.00 a week for 4 1/2 years made $936.00, that he could realize; but "cash advance" $1,164 more—he could not believe it. That time her mother was so sick and Diantha had paid both the doctor and the nurse—yes—he had been much cramped that year—and nurses come high. For Henderson, Jr.'s, expenses to San Francisco, and again for Henderson when he was out of a job—Mr. Bell remembered the boy's writing for the money, and his not having it, and Mrs. Bell saying she could arrange with Diantha.

Arrange! And that girl had kept this niggardly account of it! For Minnie's trip to the Yosemite—and what was this?—for his raisin experiment—for the new horse they simply had to have for the drying apparatus that year he lost so much money in apricots—and for the spraying materials—yes, he could not deny the items, and they covered that $1,164.00 exactly.

Then came the deadly balance, of the account between them:

Her labor . . . $2,047.00
Her board . . . $936.00
Her "cash advanced" . . . $1,164.00
————-
$4,147.00
His expense for her . . . $3,600
————-
Due her from him . . . $547.00

Diantha revolved her pencil between firm palms, and looked at him rather quizzically; while her mother rocked and darned and wiped away an occasional tear. She almost wished she had not kept accounts so well.

Mr. Bell pushed the papers away and started to his feet.

"This is the most shameful piece of calculation I ever saw in my life," said he. "I never heard of such a thing! You go and count up in cold dollars the work that every decent girl does for her family and is glad to! I wonder you haven't charged your mother for nursing her?"

"You notice I haven't," said Diantha coldly.

"And to think," said he, gripping the back of a chair and looking down at her fiercely, "to think that a girl who can earn nine hundred dollars a year teaching school, and stay at home and do her duty by her family besides, should plan to desert her mother outright—now she's old and sick! Of course I can't stop you! You're of age, and children nowadays have no sense of natural obligation after they're grown up. You can go, of course, and disgrace the family as you propose—but you needn't expect to have me consent to it or approve of it—or of you. It's a shameful thing—and you are an unnatural daughter—that's all I've got to say!"

Mr. Bell took his hat and went out—a conclusive form of punctuation much used by men in discussions of this sort.

THE POOR RELATION

A certain man had a Poor Relation, who was only kept in the family as a
Servant, who was certainly open to criticism, and who got it.

"He is so dirty!" said the Head of the Family, "That is why we make him sleep over the stable."

"He is careless and clumsy—he soils, breaks and loses things—that is why his furniture and clothing are so poor."

"He is a stupid fellow—not to be trusted with any important business—that is why he does the scullery work!"

"He is a sickly wretch too—it costs us a deal of money to have him cared for in the hospital and his defects attended to."

"Worst of all he has criminal tendencies—he is a disgrace and an expense to the Family on this account alone."

"Why do you keep him at all?" I asked.

"We have to—he is after all a relation. Besides—someone must do the scullery work."

"What do you pay him?" I asked.

"We don't really pay him anything; we just keep him alive—and clothed—so that he can do his work."

"Was he born defective?" I asked.

"No—I've heard my mother say he was as good a baby as I."

"And what relation did you say he was?"

"I rather hate to own it—but he's my brother!"

HIS CRUTCHES

Why should the Stronger Sex require,
 To hold him to his tasks,
Two medicines of varied fire?
 The Weaker Vessel asks.

Hobbling between the rosy cup
 And dry narcotic brown,—
One daily drug to stir him up
 And one to soothe him down.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

II.

THE MAN-MADE FAMILY.

The family is older than humanity, and therefore cannot be called a human institution. A post office, now, is wholly human; no other creature has a post office, but there are families in plenty among birds and beasts; all kinds permanent and transient; monogamous, polygamous and polyandrous.

We are now to consider the growth of the family in humanity; what is its rational development in humanness; in mechanical, mental and social lines; in the extension of love and service; and the effect upon it of this strange new arrangement—a masculine proprietor.

Like all natural institutions the family has a purpose; and is to be measured primarily as it serves that purpose; which is, the care and nurture of the young. To protect the helpless little ones, to feed and shelter them, to ensure them the benefits of an ever longer period of immaturity, and so to improve the race—this is the original purpose of the family.

When a natural institution becomes human it enters the plane of consciousness. We think about it; and, in our strange new power of voluntary action do things to it. We have done strange things to the family; or, more specifically, men have.

Balsac, at his bitterest, observed, "Women's virtue is man's best invention." Balsac was wrong. Virtue—the unswerving devotion to one mate—is common among birds and some of the higher mammals. If Balsac meant celibacy when he said virtue, why that is one of man's inventions—though hardly his best.

What man has done to the family, speaking broadly, is to change it from an institution for the best service of the child to one modified to his own service, the vehicle of his comfort, power and pride.

Among the heavy millions of the stirred East, a child—necessarily a male child—is desired for the credit and glory of the father, and his fathers; in place of seeing that all a parent is for is the best service of the child. Ancestor worship, that gross reversal of all natural law, is of wholly androcentric origin. It is strongest among old patriarchal races; lingers on in feudal Europe; is to be traced even in America today in a few sporadic efforts to magnify the deeds of our ancestors.

The best thing any of us can do for our ancestors is to be better than they were; and we ought to give our minds to it. When we use our past merely as a guide-book, and concentrate our noble emotions on the present and future, we shall improve more rapidly.

The peculiar changes brought about in family life by the predominance of the male are easily traced. In these studies we must keep clearly in mind the basic masculine characteristics: desire, combat, self-expression—all legitimate and right in proper use; only mischievous when excessive or out of place. Through them the male is led to strenuous competition for the favor of the female; in the overflowing ardours of song, as in nightingale and tomcat; in wasteful splendor of personal decoration, from the pheasant's breast to an embroidered waistcoat; and in direct struggle for the prize, from the stag's locked horns to the clashing spears of the tournament.

It is earnestly hoped that no reader will take offence at the necessarily frequent, reference to these essential features of maleness. In the many books about women it is, naturally, their femaleness that has been studied and enlarged upon. And though women, after thousands of years of such discussion, have become a little restive under the constant use of the word female: men, as rational beings, should not object to an analogous study—at least not for some time—a few centuries or so.

How, then, do we find these masculine tendencies, desire, combat and self-expression, affect the home and family when given too much power?

First comes the effect in the preliminary work of selection. One of the most uplifting forces of nature is that of sex selection. The males, numerous, varied, pouring a flood of energy into wide modifications, compete for the female, and she selects the victor, this securing to the race the new improvements.

In forming the proprietary family there is no such competition, no such selection. The man, by violence or by purchase, does the choosing—he selects the kind of woman that pleases him. Nature did not intend him to select; he is not good at it. Neither was the female intended to compete—she is not good at it.

If there is a race between males for a mate—the swiftest gets her first; but if one male is chasing a number of females he gets the slowest first. The one method improves our speed: the other does not. If males struggle and fight with one another for a mate, the strongest secures her; if the male struggles and fights with the female—(a peculiar and unnatural horror, known only among human beings) he most readily secures the weakest. The one method improves our strength—the other does not.

When women became the property of men; sold and bartered; "given away" by their paternal owner to their marital owner; they lost this prerogative of the female, this primal duty of selection. The males were no longer improved by their natural competition for the female; and the females were not improved; because the male did not select for points of racial superiority, but for such qualities as pleased him.

There is a locality in northern Africa, where young girls are deliberately fed with a certain oily seed, to make them fat,—that they may be the more readily married,—as the men like fat wives. Among certain more savage African tribes the chief's wives are prepared for him by being kept in small dark huts and fed on "mealies' and molasses; precisely as a Strasbourg goose is fattened for the gourmand. Now fatness is not a desirable race characteristic; it does not add to the woman's happiness or efficiency; or to the child's; it is merely an accessory pleasant to the master; his attitude being much as the amorous monad ecstatically puts it, in Sill's quaint poem, "Five Lives,"

"O the little female monad's lips!
O the little female monad's eyes!
O the little, little, female, female monad!"

This ultra littleness and ultra femaleness has been demanded and produced by our Androcentric Culture.

Following this, and part of it, comes the effect on motherhood. This function was the original and legitimate base of family life; and its ample sustaining power throughout the long early period of "the mother-right;" or as we call it, the matriarchate; the father being her assistant in the great work. The patriarchate, with its proprietary family, changed this altogether; the woman, as the property of the man was considered first and foremost as a means of pleasure to him; and while she was still valued as a mother, it was in a tributary capacity. Her children were now his; his property, as she was; the whole enginery of the family was turned from its true use to this new one, hitherto unknown, the service of the adult male.

To this day we are living under the influence of the proprietary family. The duty of the wife is held to involve man-service as well as child-service, and indeed far more; as the duty of the wife to the husband quite transcends the duty of the mother to the child.

See for instance the English wife staying with her husband in India and sending the children home to be brought up; because India is bad for children. See our common law that the man decides the place of residence; if the wife refuses to go with him to howsoever unfit a place for her and for the little ones, such refusal on her part constitutes "desertion" and is ground for divorce.

See again the idea that the wife must remain with the husband though a drunkard, or diseased; regardless of the sin against the child involved in such a relation. Public feeling on these matters is indeed changing; but as a whole the ideals of the man-made family still obtain.

The effect of this on the woman has been inevitably to weaken and overshadow her sense of the real purpose of the family; of the relentless responsibilities of her duty as a mother. She is first taught duty to her parents, with heavy religious sanction; and then duty to her husband, similarly buttressed; but her duty to her children has been left to instinct. She is not taught in girlhood as to her preeminent power and duty as a mother; her young ideals are all of devotion to the lover and husband: with only the vaguest sense of results.

The young girl is reared in what we call "innocence;" poetically described as "bloom;" and this condition is held one of her chief "charms." The requisite is wholly androcentric. This "innocence" does not enable her to choose a husband wisely; she does not even know the dangers that possibly confront her. We vaguely imagine that her father or brother, who do know, will protect her. Unfortunately the father and brother, under our current "double standard" of morality do not judge the applicants as she would if she knew the nature of their offenses.

Furthermore, if her heart is set on one of them, no amount of general advice and opposition serves to prevent her marrying him. "I love him!" she says, sublimely. "I do not care what he has done. I will forgive him. I will save him!"

This state of mind serves to forward the interests of the lover, but is of no advantage to the children. We have magnified the duties of the wife, and minified the duties of the mother; and this is inevitable in a family relation every law and custom of which is arranged from the masculine viewpoint.

From this same viewpoint, equally essential to the proprietary family, comes the requirement that the woman shall serve the man. Her service is not that of the associate and equal, as when she joins him in his business. It is not that of a beneficial combination, as when she practices another business and they share the profits; it is not even that of the specialist, as the service of a tailor or barber; it is personal service—the work of a servant.

In large generalization, the women of the world cook and wash, sweep and dust, sew and mend, for the men.

We are so accustomed to this relation; have held it for so long to be the "natural" relation, that it is difficult indeed to show that it is distinctly unnatural and injurious. The father expects to be served by the daughter, a service quite different from what he expects of the son. This shows at once that such service is no integral part of motherhood, or even of marriage; but is supposed to be the proper industrial position of women, as such.

Why is this so? Why, on the face of it, given a daughter and a son, should a form of service be expected of the one, which would be considered ignominious by the other?

The underlying reason is this. Industry, at its base, is a feminine function. The surplus energy of the mother does not manifest itself in noise, or combat, or display, but in productive industry. Because of her mother-power she became the first inventor and laborer; being in truth the mother of all industry as well as all people.

Man's entrance upon industry is late and reluctant; as will be shown later in treating his effect on economics. In this field of family life, his effect was as follows:

Establishing the proprietary family at an age when the industry was primitive and domestic; and thereafter confining the woman solely to the domestic area, he thereby confined her to primitive industry. The domestic industries, in the hands of women, constitute a survival of our remotest past. Such work was "woman's work" as was all the work then known; such work is still considered woman's work because they have been prevented from doing any other.

The term "domestic industry" does not define a certain kind of labor, but a certain grade of labor. Architecture was a domestic industry once—when every savage mother set up her own tepee. To be confined to domestic industry is no proper distinction of womanhood; it is an historic distinction, an economic distinction, it sets a date and limit to woman's industrial progress.

In this respect the man-made family has resulted in arresting the development of half the field. We have a world wherein men, industrially, live in the twentieth century; and women, industrially, live in the first—and back of it.

To the same source we trace the social and educational limitations set about women. The dominant male, holding his women as property, and fiercely jealous of them, considering them always as his, not belonging to themselves, their children, or the world; has hedged them in with restrictions of a thousand sorts; physical, as in the crippled Chinese lady or the imprisoned odalisque; moral, as in the oppressive doctrines of submission taught by all our androcentric religions; mental, as in the enforced ignorance from which women are now so swiftly emerging.

This abnormal restriction of women has necessarily injured motherhood. The man, free, growing in the world's growth, has mounted with the centuries, filling an ever wider range of world activities. The woman, bound, has not so grown; and the child is born to a progressive fatherhood and a stationary motherhood. Thus the man-made family reacts unfavorably upon the child. We rob our children of half their social heredity by keeping the mother in an inferior position; however legalized, hallowed, or ossified by time, the position of a domestic servant is inferior.

It is for this reason that child culture is at so low a level, and for the most part utterly unknown. Today, when the forces of education are steadily working nearer to the cradle, a new sense is wakening of the importance of the period of infancy, and its wiser treatment; yet those who know of such a movement are few, and of them some are content to earn easy praise—and pay—by belittling right progress to gratify the prejudices of the ignorant.

The whole position is simple and clear; and easily traceable to its root. Given a proprietary family, where the man holds the woman primarily for his satisfaction and service—then necessarily he shuts her up and keeps her for these purposes. Being so kept, she cannot develop humanly, as he has, through social contact, social service, true social life. (We may note in passing, her passionate fondness for the child-game called "society" she has been allowed to entertain herself withal; that poor simiacrum of real social life, in which people decorate themselves and madly crowd together, chattering, for what is called "entertainment.") Thus checked in social development, we have but a low grade motherhood to offer our children; and the children, reared in the primitive conditions thus artificially maintained, enter life with a false perspective, not only toward men and women, but toward life as a whole.

The child should receive in the family, full preparation for his relation to the world at large. His whole life must be spent in the world, serving it well or ill; and youth is the time to learn how. But the androcentric home cannot teach him. We live to-day in a democracy-the man-made family is a despotism. It may be a weak one; the despot may be dethroned and overmastered by his little harem of one; but in that case she becomes the despot—that is all. The male is esteemed "the head of the family;" it belongs to him; he maintains it; and the rest of the world is a wide hunting ground and battlefield wherein he competes with other males as of old.

The girl-child, peering out, sees this forbidden field as belonging wholly to men-kind; and her relation to it is to secure one for herself—not only that she may love, but that she may live. He will feed, clothe and adorn her—she will serve him; from the subjection of the daughter to that of the wife she steps; from one home to the other, and never enters the world at all—man's world.

The boy, on the other hand, considers the home as a place of women, an inferior place, and longs to grow up and leave it—for the real world. He is quite right. The error is that this great social instinct, calling for full social exercise, exchange, service, is considered masculine, whereas it is human, and belongs to boy and girl alike.

The child is affected first through the retarded development of his mother, then through the arrested condition of home industry; and further through the wrong ideals which have arisen from these conditions. A normal home, where there was human equality between mother and father, would have a better influence.

We must not overlook the effect of the proprietary family on the proprietor himself. He, too, has been held back somewhat by this reactionary force. In the process of becoming human we must learn to recognize justice, freedom, human rights; we must learn self-control and to think of others; have minds that grow and broaden rationally; we must learn the broad mutual interservice and unbounded joy of social intercourse and service. The petty despot of the man-made home is hindered in his humanness by too much manness.

For each man to have one whole woman to cook for and wait upon him is a poor education for democracy. The boy with a servile mother, the man with a servile wife, cannot reach the sense of equal rights we need to-day. Too constant consideration of the master's tastes makes the master selfish; and the assault upon his heart direct, or through that proverbial side-avenue, the stomach, which the dependent woman needs must make when she wants anything, is bad for the man, as well as for her.

We are slowly forming a nobler type of family; the union of two, based on love and recognized by law, maintained because of its happiness and use. We are even now approaching a tenderness and permanence of love, high pure enduring love; combined with the broad deep-rooted friendliness and comradeship of equals; which promises us more happiness in marriage than we have yet known. It will be good for all the parties concerned—man, woman and child: and promote our general social progress admirably.

If it needs "a head" it will elect a chairman pro tem. Friendship does not need "a head." Love does dot need "a head." Why should a family?

COMMENT AND REVIEW

I watched and waited for Margharita's Soul through eleven glittering chapters of fair words; and when it appeared at last, in the twelfth chapter, it was the funniest little by-product, born of imminent peril and ice-water.

A beautiful great body had Margharita and a beautiful great voice; but her long-delayed soul was the size of a small island and one family. Funny notion of a soul! A hen might have it. No, not a hen—she is a light-minded promiscuous creature; but a stork, let us say; she is monogamous and quite bound up in her family. No—not a stork either—storks migrate; no island would satisfy her. Apparently it takes a human creature to be proud of a soul that size.

It is a very pretty story.

Thesis: the only thing a woman is for is matrimony and much childbearing! If she don't like it—no soul.

To develop thesis: Some unusual conditions; and a weird feminine product, of such sort that her lover's sudden surrender and frantic marriage is as it were involuntary. It is of the kind that requires no soul in the beloved object, a soul might have been a little in the way in that violent attack.

Then—to sharply accent and enforce the thesis, our soulless charmer—(her overwhelming allure for the men about her, during this period, casts a sharp sidelight on the value of Soul as an Attraction!) is given a Golden Voice.

This Voice is evidently one to give measureless pleasure to thousands; not only so, but is shown to have such power as to touch hard hearts and lead them heavenward; she with no soul assisting the souls of others; long careful chapters are given to this voice; evidently as one decks out a sacrifice; for the world comforting voice is only given her that she may give it up—for Roger!

It seems a pity—with all this arranged, to ruin that voice by the shock and exposure which aroused her Soul, She herself regretted it—having so much less to give up—for Roger. She meant to give it up anyway, she said. Perhaps the author didn't trust that new Soul completely—knowing her previous character. Anyway there she is, plus a soul and minus a voice; living on the island and populating it as rapidly as possible, perfectly happy, and a lesson for us all.

But is there not also Madam Schumann-Heinck? A great sweet voice and a great sweet mother too? Has she not a Soul?

*

This Duty of Childbearing is evidently weighing on the minds of men, in these days. The thing must be done—they cant do it themselves, and they are mightily afraid we won't, if we have half a chance to do anything else. If a woman was by way of being a Dante or a Darwin, she had better give it up—for Roger—and take to replenishing the earth. She can't do both—that is the main assumption; and if she chooses to serve the world outside of the home that is sheer loss.

Says this wise Searcher of Feminine Souls: "For if all the wisdom and experience and training that the wonderful sex is to gain by its exodus from the home does not get back into it ultimately, I can't (in my masculine stupidity) quite see how it's going to get back into the race at all! And then what good has it done?"

The gentleman does not see any way of advancing the human race except by physical heredity—or by domestic influence.

What Shakespeare wrought into the constitution and character of his daughter Judy is all that matters of his life and work. Keats, having no children, contributed nothing to the world. George Washington, childless, was of no social service. Lincoln is to be measured by the number and quality of his offspring. Florence Nightingale, in lifting the grade of nursing for the world, accomplished nothing. Uncle Tom's Cabin was of no service except as it might in some mysterious way "get back into the home." What mortal perversity is it that cannot see Humanity in women as well as Sex; see that Social Service is something in itself, quite over and above all the domestic and personal relations.

This getting back into the race means only the boys. It would do no good for generations of Margaritas to inherit that Golden Voice—each and all must give it up—for Roger. The race gets no music till the bass, barytone or tenor appear.

Books like this are pathetic in their little efforts to check social progress.

We suspect the author's name to be Mr. Partington.

*

(The Life and Times of Anne Royall. By Sarah Harvey Porter, M.A. 12mo.
 Cloth, 209 pp. $1.50 net; postage 12 cents.)

Biography has never been a favorite study with me; but I was interested in this book because the woman whose life it described seemed worth while. Reading it, I found not only the life of Anne Royall, but the life of America in the early part of the nineteenth century, in our young, crude, dangerous days of national formation. A novel has been defined as "a corner of life seen through a temperament." If that is a true definition, then this is a novel, for Anne Royall had "temperament" if ever anyone had, and she saw a large corner of life through it.

Who was Anne Royall? An American woman, pioneer born and bred, familiar with the life-and-death struggle of the frontier, and full of the spirit of '76. She was born in 1769, and lived through the War of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and almost up to the Civil War, dying in 1854. In 1797 she was married to Captain William Royall, an exceptional man, a Virginian, cultivated, liberal, singularly broad-minded and public-spirited, and life with him added years of genuine culture to the energy of a naturally bright mind. Left a widow at the age of forty-four, and, after ten years of travel and experience, defrauded of the property left to her by her husband, she began to live a brave self-supporting independent life at an age when most of the women of her years were white-capped grandmothers.

Instead of sinking into the position of a dependent female relative, she insisted on earning her own living. This she did as so many women do to-day, by the use of her pen, a rarer profession in those times. The more remarkable thing is that in the face of overwhelming odds she stood for a religion, at a period when old-fashioned Calvinism was still a dominant power. The most remarkable, is her absolute devotion to the public interests, to social service as she saw it.

There were a good many women writers even at that time, some of high merit, but there were few publicists among them. Some espoused this or that "Cause" and gave to it the passionate devotion so natural to a woman's heart. But Anne Royall, while she also was passionately devoted to several well-defined "Causes," was unique in that she kept in view the general situation of her country, political, economic, geographic, and educational, and wrote steadily for thirty-one years on matters of national importance.

It is not a question of whether she was right or wrong—though she was mostly right, as history has proved; but the impressive thing is that this old woman, with "troubles of her own," was overwhelmingly interested in her country and its service. There are not so many, either men or women, of this mind, that we can afford to overlook this sturdy pioneer "new woman." She had virtues, too, good solid Christian virtues of the rarer sort; she visited the sick and afflicted, gave to him that asked, and from him that would borrow turned not away. Even to her own weaker sisters she was a strength and comfort, greatly injuring her own position by this unusual charity. Also she was brave, honest, truthful, persevering, industrious—"manly" virtues these.

But—and here we have the reason why Anne Royall made no greater mark, why she was "unsuccessful," why most of us never heard of her—she attacked great powers, and she fought unwisely. Her abusive writing sounds abominably to-day, but must be judged, of course, by the standard of her time. The worst things she said were not as bad as things Shelley said—as the bitter invective and scurrilous attacks common to pamphleteers of the time. If our newspapers are yellow, theirs were orange in the matter of personalities.

But even then this woman had a keen-cutting weapon, and used it unsparingly. Being alone, with no male relative to defend her; being poor, and so further defenceless; being old, thus lacking weak woman's usual protection of beauty, she had absolutely nothing to fall back on when her enemies retaliated.

This picture of one lone woman defying and blackguarding what was almost an established church, is much like Jack the Giantkiller—with a different result. It was deemed necessary to crush this wasp that stung so sharply; and in 1829, in the capitol city of the United States of America, a court of men tried—and convicted—this solitary woman of sixty as a Common Scold. They raked up obsolete laws, studied and strove to wrest their meanings to apply to this case, got together some justification, or what seemed to them justification for their deeds, and succeeded in irretrievably damaging her reputation.

She was not to be extinguished, however. In 1831 she started a newspaper, with the ill-chosen name of PAUL PRY. In 1836 another took its place, called THE HUNTRESS. And on the sale of these newspapers and her books, the indomitable old lady lived to fight and fought to live till she was eighty-five.

She is well worth reading about. The history of her times rises and lives around her. In her vivid description we see the new rugged country, over which she travelled from end to end; in her accounts of current literature we pick up stray bits of information as to new authors and new words. "Playfulness," for instance, is one which she stigmatizes as "silly in sound and significance," and declares that she does not read the new novels "with the exception of Walter Scott's." More interesting still to most of us is to study over the long lists of her pen-portraits and see our ancestors as the others saw them. Few Americans of three generations but can find some grandfather or great uncle halo-ed or pilloried by this clear-eyed observer.

Miss Porter has done her work well. It is clear, strong and entertaining—this biography. If the writer seems more enthusiastic about Anne Royall than the reader becomes, that is clearly due to an unusual perception of life-values; a recognition of the noble devotion and high courage of her subject, and an intense sympathy with such characteristics.

*

The discussion as to whether we should or should not teach children the Santa Claus myth pops up anew with Christmas time; and puzzles anew anyone who regards this festival from a religious viewpoint.

If it was a choice between Santa Claus and nothing, we might prefer Santa Claus; but here we have before us three things: first, the basis of fact, the world old festival of the turn of the year, the coming of the sun; second, a history of rejoicing peoples throughout all the ages, keeping up the celebration under changing gods and dogmas; and third, the story of beauty and wonder about the birth of Jesus.

Any child could be taught the meaning of the Coming of the Sun. The growing light, the longer days, the beautiful future of flowers and birds and playing in the grass; the joy of the young year. If we want legends and stories, every religion behind us is full of them; stories of sun-gods and their splendid triumph; stories of the great earth mother and her bounty; stories of elves and gnomes and druids and all manner of fairy tales.

But why avoid our own religion—the first which has emphatically taught Love as the Law of Life—peace on earth and good-will to men. Are we ashamed of our religion or don't we believe it any more? If we do accept it in all the long-told tales of miracle and wonder, then we have stories enough to tell our children; stories of simple human beauty, stories of heavenly glory, stories of mystery and magic and delight.

If we do not wish to tell them these things as literally true; or even as beautiful legends, there remains enough historic foundation to begin with; and enough of the enduring glory of human love to last us a lifetime.

"What is Christmas, Mama?"

"Christmas is a festival as old as the world, dear child—as old as our human world; historic people have feasted and danced and sung for thousands upon thousands of years, at this time of the year; and offered gifts."

"Why do they give things at Christmas, Mama?"

"Because they are happy, dear; because they feel rich and glad and loving now that the sun is coming back. As if Mama had been away—and you could just see her—a long, long way off. You had seen her go—and go—and go—farther and farther; and then she stopped a while—with her back to you—and then all of a sudden she turned round and came toward you! Wouldn't you be glad?"

Then if the child wants to know about the tree and the candles and all the details of ceremony, there are facts and fancies to account for them all.

But if he says, "Why do they call it Christmas, Mama?"—then you must tell him the secret of Christianity—which is love.

Now, can anyone explain—or defend, in face of all this, our preference for a shallow local myth about St. Nicholas, and the corruption of that into a mere comic supplement character; a bulbous benevolent goblin, red-nosed and gross, doing impossible tricks with reindeers and chimneys, and half the time degraded to a mere adjunct of nursery government? Why do we think it beautiful? Or interesting? Or beneficial? The children like it, we say.

Children like what they are used to, generally. Also, like older people, they are prone to like what isn't good for them. They like brandy-drops among sweetmeats, but that is no reason we should supply them.

*

This brings us to a strange characteristic of most of us; we seem to prefer small cheap shallow outside things to the deep glowing beauty of life. We seem afraid to take life at its splendid best; choosing rather to live in a litter of petty ideas and feelings, and save the big ones for Sundays—or annual holidays.

*

Yet in our hearts we all love great sweeps of emotion; and children especially. Prof. Thomas, of Chicago, has given us a sidelight on this in his clever book about women, "Sex and Society." He shows how in our long pre-social period we were accustomed to strong excitement, long hours of quivering suspense, mad rushes of blind fear, and orgies of wild triumph. Our nerve channels were like the beds of mountain streams, in dry warm lands; lying shallow or even empty at times; and again roaring torrents. So that nowadays, on the paved levels of our civilized life, the well-graduated dribble of small steady feelings, the organism itself cries out for a change in the pressure.

Children and young people feel this more than older ones; the very old, indeed, resent an unusual emotion. Yet when the young grow restless and fretfully "wish something would happen!" we rebuke them; from the heights of our enforced contentment; and call this natural and healthy feeling a mere "thirst for excitement."

*

We need excitement. We have a vast capacity for it. It is a most useful thing—this excitement; and we ought to have more of it, much more. These young people are perfectly right in their uneasy feeling that it would be nice to have something happen!

With all this to bank on, why so overlook the splendid possibilities of Christmas? Why continue to make our helpless children's minds the submissive channels for poor worn-out thin old stories? Are there no gorgeous glowing truths in life—real life—now?

Then we tired aged people—born and reared in this atmosphere of cold weariness; shake our heads and say—

"No. Life is hard. Life is dreary. Life is one long grind!"

That is where we are wrong, and the children are right. They come in new every time. The earth is as young to them as it was to Adam.

If we would but once face the dignity and beauty of childhood instead of looking down on it as we do—then we could take advantage of that constant influx of force, instead of doing our best to crush it down.

This brings us sharply back to our Christmas—the festival of the Child.

It is. If celebrates the real new year; the new-born year, the opening of another season of Life.

Dimly, very dimly, we have glimpsed this now and then, in the old triune godhead of Isis, Osiris and Horus; and in our modern worship of the Madonna and Child.

The time is coming very near when we shall see the meaning of The Child more fully; and make our worship wiser.

What we see in all our thousand homes is "my child." What the doll-taught mother sees is a sweet pretty dressable object; far more time and effort being given—even before its birth—to the making of clothing, than to the making of its constitution or character.

Then we see children as "a care," and a care they are to our worldwide incompetence. How pathetic is the inadequacy of the young mother! She would never dare to undertake to run a racing stable with no more knowledge and experience than she brings to run a family.

She loves them—?

Yes, she loves them. And Mother love is so mighty a power that we all love and honor Motherhood—in spite of its obvious deficiencies. But none of these feelings; not even the deepest mother-love, is all that we should give the child.

He needs Understanding—and Honor.

He needs to be recognized as the forefront of the world—the world of to-morrow—the world we are making.

As we bear and rear him—and her!—as we guide and teach them both, so stand the Men and Women who follow us.

*

Of course we do the best we can for our own little ones. That goes without saying.

So does a monkey.

It is far more than that the child needs.

This Young Life, celebrated in our Christian Festival; this New Life,
Better Life, Life to Come, deserves more respect.

And the first meed of honor which we owe to our Successor, is to tell him the truth!

*

That ought to put an end to our paltry old story of the Benign Chimney
Climber.

What we are here for, all of us, is to make the world better and the people better. It is an easy and a pleasant game, if we would but give our minds to it. The whole swiftly spreading enchantment of our varied arts and industries is making a garden out of a wilderness; and even the limited and defective education we now offer to our children, makes better people than we used to have.

But what we have done for them is nothing to what we may do! The best brains in the world should proudly serve the child. We should consider him as a nation does its crown Prince—not a mere pet and darling—but a coming Ruler.

*

Christmas will have a rejuvenation when it is recognized in this sense as the Child's Festival. Every beautiful myth of the past remains to decorate it; every beautiful truth to vivify it. It should be a domestic, religious, civic, national and international festival.

It should mean Joy—and Hope—and Love; and teach them.

*

And Gifts?

Yes, gifts. There could be no more appropriate testimony to Joy and Hope and Love than these visible fruits. Gifts to the happy child to make him happier. Gifts from the happy child—and the new joy of giving. Gifts everywhere—from each to each—as showing the rich overflow of Love and joy.

And more than that—Gifts from Each to All! There is a custom worth initiating! Not charity nor anything of that sort. Not the mere visiting of the sick and the prisoner. But a yearly practice of giving something to the Community—to show you love it!

*

And suppose you don't?

If you had been properly taught as a child you would. If you teach our children properly they will. Should we not gratefully recognize the care and service that gives as everything we have? It is the most glaring lesson in life—this universal help of each to all.

Every day of our lives we are served and guarded and generally blessed by—the Community.

*

It is perfectly easy to teach this to a child. Everything that he sees about him—that is not "a natural object," some of us dead or alive have made. The accumulated services of all the people gone have given us the world as it is; those now here keep it up for us; and we—and our children may build it better.

Not love the people who have given you the world? How ungrateful!

*

At which you will remark disgustedly, "Given! Not much? They were paid for it."

That is our mistake.

In the first place they never were paid for it—and are not now—not by a long way. And further—if we had outgrown this temporary custom of paying for this—we should still have to serve each other—to live.

If we were all multi-millionaires—and so perfectly "independent"—why we'd have to have some millionaire sailors and house-builders and blacksmiths—that's all. Their money would build no houses and sail no ships.

Service is what counts—giving—the outpouring of strength and good-will.

That is what Christmas means. It is the Festival of Life. Love and
Service—Loving and Giving—for the Coming Race.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

We have one, a mere sample, left over from last time.

Query: "My wife is spending more of my income on dress than I can afford. How can I stop her? G.

Answer: G. "By letting her earn her own income and spend it as she pleases."

G. would never be content with that. G. would get back at us and say—

Query: "How can a woman do her duty as a mother and earn her own living?"

Answer: "If your wife was doing her duty as a mother she wouldn't be spending so much money on dress!"

Answer further: Motherhood is "piecework"—it is not done by the hour. The value of a mother to her children is not to be measured by quantity, but by quality. If a mother understood any business thoroughly, she would begin to understand her mother-work better than she does now.

Query: "But how can a mother leave her children and go to work?"

Answer: "She does not have to. She could be a milliner or dressmaker at home just as well as a cook."

But these problems are general rather than personal. Here is a personal one.

Query: "I am about thirty—a woman. I wish very much to be married. All the nice men in our town have left it—or are married. There are thirty or forty more unmarried women than men. What shall I do? X."

Answer: "Leave that town and go to some place where there are more men. Go as a matter of business, earning your own living. Keep well, be as good as you know how, and trust in Providence."

GET YOUR WORK DONE

Get your work DONE, to remember,—
 Nothing can take it away,
Then shall the sun of December
 Shine brighter than goldenest May.

What is the Spring-time of flowers for?
 Why does the sunshine come down?
What are the harvest-day hours for
 But fruit? In the fruit is the crown.

Why should we grieve over losses?
 Why should we fret over sin?
Death is the smallest of crosses
 To the worker whose harvest is in.

[Advertisement]

LOWNEY'S

I speak as one who has cared little for candy of any kind and less for chocolate candy.

I don't like chocolate cake, nor chocolate blanc mange, nor chocolate pudding, nor chocolate to drink—unless it is cocoa, very hot, not too sweet, and strained carefully.

Nevertheless I fell in with friends, who feasted upon Lowney's; they beguiled me into feasting upon Lowney's, and since then my attitude has changed as to candy.

I had a box of Lowney's, a particularly well-made, attractive box, that is still kept to put small treasures in, and brought it home for my family to eat.

Always before, I had looked on with the unselfishness of a pelican, to see others eat candy; but now I strove with them, like a frigate bird, and made them give up some of it. I wanted it myself.

Furthermore, I bought a small box of Lowney's chocolate almonds in Portland, Oregon, on the fourteenth of June, and with severe self-denial, brought it home on the twenty-ninth of July.

Then it was eaten, largely by me, and every single one of those chocolate almonds was fresh and good.

I can state further, on the evidence of personal friends, that all the
Lowney preparations are pure and honest and perfectly reliable.

They are as good as the best in the world.

As to the candy,—That's better.

C. P. G.

Walter M. Lowney Co.

BOSTON, MASS.

Please mention THE FORERUNNER when purchasing

[Advertisement]

SOAPINE

Did you ever see the Soapine Whale?

If this paper took half-tones I'd like to put in a picture of that whale—for auld lang syne.

When I was a girl I used to paint it, making the small advertising cards then so popular.

I could do it with a clear conscience, for my mother always used Soapine and I used it after her.

That box, with the mercilessly scrubbed whale on it, stood on the shelf over the sink, and was used continually; to wash dishes, wash floors, wash clothes, wash anything. It's good stuff.

Make a pail of suds with hot water and Soapine, and apply where it's needed—you'll be satisfied.

There are plenty of alleged "just as good"s, but give me Soapine every time.

C.P.G.

IT IS MADE BY

Kendall Mfg. Co. = Providence, R.I.

Please mention THE FORERUNNER when purchasing

[Advertisement]

WOMAN'S ERA

THE NEW MAGAZINE OF INSPIRATION FOR WOMEN OF AMERICA IN A CLASS OF ITS OWN!

A monthly world-wide review of women's activities, achievements and aims in all the broader fields of work; reviews and original, authoritative articles on

Economics, Ethics, Civics, Arts and Crafts, Music, Literature, Club and
College Work, etc.

Among its contributors are:

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Maude Ballington Booth
Florence Kelley
Mme. Sara Anderson
Prof. Margaret Cross
Miss Emma Church
Alice Hubbard
Kate Barnard
Mrs. Eva Perry Moore
Rev. Anna Shaw

And a host of other equally noted authorities in the world of women.

Initial Number out January 15, 1910

Subscribe NOW

Secure each valuable number from the start. Prospectus now ready upon request. Address

Woman's Era Publishing Co.
NEW ORLEANS, LA.

[Advertisement]

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

AS TO PURPOSE:

What is The Forerunner? It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

What is it For? It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.

What is it about? It is about people, principles, and the questions of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

Is it a Woman's magazine? It will treat all three phases of our existence—male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important citizen.

Is it a Socialist Magazine? It is a magazine for humanity, and humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious humanity is to promote Socialization.

Why is it published? It is published to express ideas which need a special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser." The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:—

"Our Androcentric Culture." this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.

"What Diantha Did." This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly—as it so often does—among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem—and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"

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___

__________

__________

__________

[Advertisement]

C A L E N D U L A

CHILDREN CEASE TO CRY FOR IT.

This is a gratuitous advertisement, benefitting

a) The Child; whose pain stops;

b) The Mother; who doesn't have to hear him cry;

c) The Nearest Druggist—a little.

CALENDULA is a good standard old drug—made of marigolds—in the materia medica. You buy a little bottle of tincture of calendula, and keep it on the shelf. Nobody will drink it by mistake—it doesn't taste good.

Presently Johnny falls down hard—he was running—he fell on a gritty place—his poor little knee is scraped raw. And he howls, how he howls! square-mouthed and inconsolable.

Then you hastily get a half a tea-cupful of water, a little warm if you have it, and put in a few drops of calendula. Wet a soft clean rag in it, bind it softly on the wound, keep it wet—and the pain stops.

Many many times has this quieted my infant anguish; also have I used it as a grown up. The effect is the same.

C A L E N D U L A TAKES THE PAIN FROM A R A W W O U N D

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR .10 A COPY Volume 1. No. 3 JANUARY, 1910 Copyright for 1910 C. P. Gilman

Forgive the Past—and forget it!—don't carry a grudge against
graveyards.
Accept the Present—you have to—here it is.
Concentrate on the Future—still yours to make—and get busy!