A Voice of Her Own Read online

  That evening Austin and I had one of our Night Talks upon the kitchen hearth. All proper folk, having heard the 9. oclock bell, were under cover, a fact adding in no small measure to the excitement. We used to have these talks quite often, and I think there is nothing in this world I loved more, unless of course you count Roughnaps.

  That was a joke.

  This night as usual the others were long in bed, the cats secured in their basement lair—Tootsie complaining in halting stanza regarding his dank surroundings and no Vinnie to sit on—and Austin and I in all our glory upon the hearth going on about the Universe, an enjoyable place to be if one considers the alternative.

  “Why do the stars look still?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If our Earth is spinning on its axis and not only that, all the while circling the Sun, why do the stars look still?”

  “It has to do with distance,” said Austin, looking very wise.

  “What sort of distance?”

  “Our distance, our perspective, all such things that frame our mind’s view of the truth.”

  I pulled my shawl about my shoulders, my arms about my knees. “But if one rides in a carriage, let’s say, what one looks at appears to move, though it may be quite still.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Why don’t it seem the same with stars?”

  “It does.”

  “It don’t to me.”

  “The stars are so far away as to appear to move very slowly.”

  “They don’t appear to move at all.”

  “They move. You just don’t notice it.” Austin took a sip of cocoa from his special large china cup. “If you looked at the Big Dipper now and again at midnight, it would appear to be in a different place.”

  I suggested trying the experiment, but Austin felt that by midnight, I, being only ten, would have fallen asleep and that he had, as he put it, “things to do in the morning.” I did not believe him about the “things to do in the morning.” It was my feeling he himself was tired but, being proud of his advanced age of twelve, did not care to admit it.

  “I think there is more to life than we can see, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s there. What we see is not everything.”

  Austin took another sip of cocoa. “Probably not,” he agreed.

  “Where is Heaven?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean where is Heaven?”

  “Where is Heaven?”

  “Is it on the other side of the stars?”

  “Heaven isn’t there in the way you mean it.”

  “What way is that?”

  “As if it were on a map, or at the end of the street.”

  “Is it there in any way?”

  “Don’t let Reverend Colton hear you ask that.”

  I remembered our esteemed minister’s sermon some weeks before, the one that told of the wickedness in our hearts and the need for redemption. I had been awfully vexed about it. “I cannot accept that all the fine people of this world—every last one of us—was born a sinner,” I exclaimed. “What about the animals? Were they born sinners as well? All the valiant dogs, the placid cows, the sheep, the birds? Can they be sinners too, or are they considered too insignificant to be members of the fearsome equation?”

  “I think it is only man who must repent.” It appeared that women were to be excluded as usual from serious matters, yet on this point it may have been to their advantage. “Animals don’t count,” Austin added. There seemed to be little or no sense to the whole business. I felt the desire to take refuge from such weighty concerns and closed my eyes. They hurt, from being tired, I surmised. We sat in quiet, full and loving, no need of proof.

  After some time I spoke. “What do you think of our portrait?” The picture had been commissioned by Father some months before and rested on a chair across the kitchen, waiting for Father to have sufficient time to hang it. Painted by a certain Mr. Bullard, it showed the three of us children in uncomfortable clothing, looking out from the canvas with identical pairs of eyes. I remember how scratchy my white collar felt as we stood still to be painted. Vinnie wore a fancy blue dress. Mine was darker and plain. Mr. Bullard knew me well, though how I cannot imagine. There I was, holding a flower and a book. Now that tells my story!

  Austin was studying the portrait. “My cheeks are too pink,” he said. “I look like a girl.”

  He did not look like a girl despite the pinkness of his cheeks, and I told him so. However, I pointed out that in my opinion the portrait caught little of his masculine roughness. “The mind is there,” I told him, “but not the muscle.”

  He appeared relieved.

  “I like the way I am holding a rose and a book,” I mused.

  “It suits you.”

  “I shall write books,” I heard myself say.

  It was a girlish fancy—as a child might say “I shall wear fine dresses” or “I shall travel about the world.”

  I didn’t know I meant it.

  Girl Friends

  Spring brought many pleasures. First off I started the piano in earnest. I practiced every day and even began to make up songs, which delighted me very much. My new flower press was handy. It is possible to press flowers with books, but one must use quite a stack. The books must remain in place for two days at least, so you are out of luck if you want to read one.

  And of course there was school! I loved all my teachers! I also loved all my subjects, Composition and Recitation being my special favorites. We were obliged to write a composition every other week and deliver it before the entire student body Wednesday afternoons. Abby and many of the other girls did not care for writing and certainly did not want to read their compositions in front of five hundred students, most of whom were boys, but this was my meat!

  I have to laugh when I remember the composition of a young man named Porter, whose Subject was—and I quote—“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” It went like this. “If a gentleman is walking with a cow and sees a lady with a dog who has no ears, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” I told him if he wanted us to follow his story, he had better not put all his eggs in one basket.

  My compositions were varied and of great interest to myself as well as to the many fortunate listeners. One was about Vinnie’s cats, as models of propriety gone awry; another about a trip to sea and many aboard ship being already dead, a fact revealed in the last sentence only; another about the journey of a bird migrating from New England to South America only to discover that her mate was never to arrive. That was a sad one.

  The cemetery was a busy place that spring. One Saturday I stood looking out my window as the latest funeral procession headed up the hill toward the freshly dug grave. It was poor Mr. Wentworth from Main Street, who Sunday last had occupied the pew ahead of us at church, with his baby daughter, not three years old. The sun was bright, a show of disrespectful cheer on so serious a morning. Mrs. Wentworth carried her tiny, fatherless daughter. Her son’s anxious hand grasped her black skirt.

  Questions filled my brain as I stood by the window, surrounded by the heft of the unknown.

  Where is Mr. Wentworth this fine morning, and only days from Sunday church?

  Consumption was the culprit. I do not understand Death and fear it very much.

  I backed away from the window. The starkness of the sun’s insistent rays burned my eyes. Or was it unrest?

  Do I have consumption?

  I have this thought very often, but tell no one, as I fear it will upset the apple cart. I had consumption as an infant. Father used to take me to the mill as they say breathing in the grist will cure it. But that don’t help the lesions one bit, no matter what they say. Father never mentions consumption. Even when I am ill for months with an ax in my side and a cough that don’t quit, he says not one word. Perhaps he fears I have consumption but does not speak of it as he imagines to name it would be to make it so.

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bsp; I stepped closer to the window, watching as the mourners gathered about the coffin, formal—wooden—ceremonious—numb. Reverend Colton read from his Bible. His lips moved, but all was silent in my bedroom world.

  Do I have consumption? Is it lying in wait only to blossom into Death at the will of a guiltless God?

  I asked Abby about it and she said there was no way of knowing for sure, but her feeling was I did not have it. I prayed she was right.

  Two things pleased me most that spring, my friends and my hair. At the risk of offending modesty I must say my hair is soft like the sunlight, fine like a baby’s and golden, with a touch of red. It was growing longer. One day soon I hoped to wear my tresses done up in a net cap, as many of the older girls were doing. I had no doubt many Whiskers might turn in my direction when that came to pass, as I would be a comely sight to behold.

  Last, but by no means least, I had such wonderful friends! Abby was closest of the close; and there was Helen Fiske; Emily Fowler—an older girl; Harriet Merrill, whose mother ran, of all things, a boardinghouse; and my dear cousin, Sophia Holland, two years older than me and very wise. Sophia was unlike anyone I had ever known, gentle and fair and as delicate as a porcelain vase. I sometimes thought she would break. Our times were quiet walks and long sits on the hill, reading, each a different book, together in the truth of Nature. Sophia was shy. At times her tenderness broke my heart. And there was Jennie—or Jane Humphrey as she is scientifically called. Jennie came to Amherst to attend Amherst Academy. The plan had been made between our parents that Jennie would live with us for some brief time. I had been looking forward to her arrival with curious anticipation. I loved her straightway. We shared a bed and would always run from as far away as possible and jump onto it. We never climbed into bed modestly as proper New England young ladies are taught to do. No such ordinary method of retiring for us! The run, the jump, laughing, rolling off, jumping again! Mother gave us the extra room to sleep in. It was small, yet suitable for guests and the storing of things used rarely.

  The cats loved that room. When Jennie and I moved in, it became necessary to lay down the law. We even put a sign by the door. NO CATS it said in bold letters. Although we placed the sign at cat’s eye level, it was meant to inform Vinnie of the seriousness of our position in regard to the matter. The cats would on occasion get in. Tiger Boy was the worst offender. He would often be perched atop the largest box, staring at us with proprietary eyes as we entered in search of a little private comfort. Then Vinnie would be called to come and get the intruder before Jennie and I would shut the door and fall on our bed, arms outstretched, flat on our backs and the breeze through the open window playing across our bare arms and legs.

  The ceiling needed painting, but the molding was proud. I use to wonder what it had witnessed in its many years above human pastimes. I liked to count the grapes and the leaves in their chain about the top of the room, a grape, a leaf, a grape, a leaf, two grapes, a leaf, two leaves. And all the while Jennie and I having our girlish fancies—how a certain “you know who” had been watching a certain other “you know who” throughout the entire afternoon’s recitations and failed to recognize her own name when called by our illustrious teacher, or some such lively escapade, and then we could go on and on until it was time for supper!

  It was May, with church activities abounding. There was the Sale of Useful and Fancy Articles—a merry phrase!—the Christian Women’s Annual Bake Sale and Embroidery Display—one waited breathlessly all year for that!—the Junior Benevolent Church Members—Evening and the Parish Society Fair. Neither Jennie nor I made large contributions to these events, but Harriet Merrill devoted every spare moment of her time to the Parish Society Fair—and she high on a ladder, dressing Mr. Sweetser’s hall with Evergreens!

  Abby and Jennie and Cousin Sophia and I enjoyed long talks in the afternoon after school. Our favorite spot for these secret exchanges was the front door stone. One day Vinnie was tracking the cats while Mother as usual was engaged in housework, her hair in the customary pocket handkerchief, pursuing some urgent task or other—polishing a section of the attic floor, or pulling last year’s leaves out of the eave spout.

  “Emily Fowler’s brother is ill,” I said as we sat on the front door stone, and a little robin just near, hopping along the walk toward Mother’s garden.

  “They say it’s serious,” said Sophia, her long, pale hair lit by the sun.

  “What a large name he has,” I mused.

  “Webster,” said Jennie, considering the name. “It is large.”

  The yard looked finely, the cherry trees in bloom, the white lilies and the slender honeysuckle no longer able to hide their delight in spring. Jennie spread her dress about her legs and I, thinking it a capital idea, did the same. As our dresses rustled, the timid birds in the cherry tree said “chirrup” and hopped away.

  “Do you think Helen likes the way William stares at her?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Abby. She appeared to have no doubt.

  “She tells me she doesn’t like him, but I don’t believe it.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Why don’t you believe it?” asked Sophia. She was always one to give others the benefit of the doubt.

  “I can see it in her eyes,” said Abby. “She likes him. You can tell.”

  I expected Jennie to agree with us, but she said not one word. “You seem awfully quiet on the matter,” I told her. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you fancied him yourself.”

  “Me??” Her mock surprise told a merry tale!

  I noticed two yellow eyes staring at us from the far side of the walk. It was none other than Tiger Boy, who was lying in the grass, his body covered so that all one could see was two black pointed ears and two yellow eyes. I hoped he didn’t have his mind on the robin.

  “I think Abby fancies him,” said Jennie, “if you want to know the truth.”

  “I do not!” said Abby.

  “Time will tell.”

  “Time will tell nothing!” Abby sat up tall and sudden. “I can tell you at this very moment I do not fancy William!”

  “So you say!”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t,” ventured Sophia.

  “I don’t!”

  Jennie was in a silent dither at that point. Attempting to hide the truth of her amorous leanings, she turned the subject to yours truly. “Perhaps Emily fancies William herself,” she accused, staring me hard in the eyes.

  I kept my composure. “I prefer Josiah,” I explained, calm, unruffled.

  “Don’t you find him short?” asked Abby.

  “Height doesn’t matter,” said Sophia.

  Vinnie came around the side of the house, carrying Snugglepoops, a large cat for so tiny a girl but Vinnie has always been strong. “Tiger Boy ran away,” she said, her lower lip trembling.

  “No, he didn’t.” I pointed across the walk. “Look over there.”

  Vinnie turned and spotted the yellow eyes. “Tiger Boy!” she screamed. She ran toward him, Snugglepoops held tightly in her grasp. “Bad cat!” Tiger Boy was not about to accept the criticism and bolted off into the woods.

  “Now you’ve done it!” Vinnie yelled at me.

  “I know what we have to do,” Jennie said with sudden resolve.

  “What?” said Abby.

  “We have to make a list of the boys we like.”

  “Now he’s gone forever!” cried Vinnie.

  “No, he’s not,” I said. “He only went to kill some birds.”

  “And it has to be in order,” said Jennie.

  “A Whisker List!” Abby exclaimed.

  Vinnie carried Snugglepoops inside as we set about making our list. We decided straightway it was to be kept in utmost secrecy. We would ask Harriet Merrill if she would like to add names to the group, explaining our condition that no one would speak of the list to another living soul. We supposed Emily Fowler, being a good five years older, might be too mature for such trivial pursuits and Helen Fiske would consider us foo
lish, but Harriet would love it.

  A farmer was cutting down a tree somewhere in the woods. We could hear the sharp ring of his ax, a dauntless send-off to our plan.

  Early Poems and Damnation

  I was sick most of the summer. However, once strong enough to lift my head from the pillow, I wrote a poem. It had been on my mind those half-awake days upon the bed, so hot and far away from worldly concerns. I heard a dog bark, demanding of something he felt the right to have. I could hear it in the bark. He—I assumed it to be a male dog—wanted it. It belonged to him. He had lost patience with the situation. His birthright was being ignored. He could be said to be at his “wits—end,” a phrase I learned from Mother. As I listened I fashioned myself a part of that dog—not fashioned really. It was not a thinking matter. I felt I was with that dog—in that dog—more a sudden happening than a make-believe game. We were one and I smiled all alone upon the sheets and no one there to see. I was at rest and alive at the selfsame moment. It was the grandest feeling! I had very much enjoyed composing my few poems before that day, my compositions as well, but this was different. I was in my place.

  I don’t remember the poem. Wait! I do!

  He barks to make her understand