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Log-Cabin Lady-Unknown · David Crockett, Scout

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Preface of The Log Cabin Lady. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: by Sherry Gardner, The Log Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography preface.
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  Speaker 1: The Story of the Log Cabin Lady is one of
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  Speaker 1: the annals of America. It is a moving record of
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  Speaker 1: the conquest of self consciousness and fear through mastery of
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  Speaker 1: manners and customs. It has been written by one who
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: has not sacrificed the strength and honesty of her pioneer girlhood,
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  Speaker 1: but who added to these qualities that graciousness and charm
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  Speaker 1: which have given her distinction on two continents. I have
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: been asked to tell how the Story of the Log
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Cabin Lady came to be written. At a luncheon given
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: at the Colony Club in nineteen twenty, I was invited
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  Speaker 1: to talk about Madame Curie. There were at that table
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  Speaker 1: a group of important women. When I had finished the
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  Speaker 1: story of the great scientist whose service to humanity was
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  Speaker 1: halted by lack of laboratory equipment, and of the very
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: radium which she had herself discovered. One guest asked, why
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  Speaker 1: do you spend your life with a woman's magazine when
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  Speaker 1: you could do big work like serving Madame Curie, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: I replied that a woman's magazine is one of the
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  Speaker 1: biggest services that can be rendered in this country. My
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  Speaker 1: challenge was met with scorn by one of the women
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  Speaker 1: upon whose education and accomplishments of fortune had been spent.
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  Speaker 1: It is stupid, she said, to print articles about bringing
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  Speaker 1: up children and furnishing houses, setting tables and feeding families,
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  Speaker 1: or whether it is good form for the host to
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  Speaker 1: suggest another service at the dinner table. There are twenty
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  Speaker 1: million homes in America, I answered, only eight percent of
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  Speaker 1: these have servants in them. In the other ninety two percent,
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  Speaker 1: the women do their own housework, bring up their own children,
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  Speaker 1: and take an active part in the life and growth
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  Speaker 1: of America. They are the people who help make this
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  Speaker 1: country the great nation that it is. After luncheon, one
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  Speaker 1: of the guests, a woman of great social prominence, distinguished
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  Speaker 1: both in her own country and abroad, asked me to
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  Speaker 1: drive down town with her. When we entered her car,
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  Speaker 1: she said, with much feeling, you must go on with
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  Speaker 1: the thing you are doing believing she referred to the
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  Speaker 1: Cury campaign. I replied that I had committed myself to
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  Speaker 1: the work and could not abandon it. I was not
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  Speaker 1: referring to the Cury campaign, she replied, but to the delineator,
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  Speaker 1: you are right. It is of vital importance to serve
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  Speaker 1: the great masses of people. I know it will probably
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  Speaker 1: surprise you to learn that when I was fourteen years old,
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  Speaker 1: I had never seen a table napkin. My family were
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  Speaker 1: pioneers in the Northwest and were struggling for mere existence.
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  Speaker 1: There was no time for the niceties of life. And
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  Speaker 1: yet people like my family and myself are worth serving
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  Speaker 1: and saving. I have known what it means to lie
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: awake all night, suffering with shame because of some stupid
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  Speaker 1: social blunder which had made me appear ridiculous before my
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  Speaker 1: husband's family or his friends. This was a most amazing
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: statement from a woman known socially on two continents and
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  Speaker 1: famed for her Savo affaire. There were tears in her
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  Speaker 1: eyes when she made her confession. She was stirred by
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a very real and deep emotion. It had been years,
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  Speaker 1: she said, since the old recollections had come back to her,
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  Speaker 1: but she had been moved by my plea for service
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  Speaker 1: to home women and to the great mass of ordinary
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  Speaker 1: American people. She told me that while living abroad, she
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  Speaker 1: had often met American girls, intelligent women, well bred, the
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  Speaker 1: finest stuff in the world, who suffered under a disadvantage
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  Speaker 1: because they lacked a little training in the social amenities.
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  Speaker 1: It has been a satisfaction and a compensation to me,
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  Speaker 1: she added, to be able sometimes to serve these fellow
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  Speaker 1: countrywomen of mine. And right there was born the idea
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: which culminated in the writing of this little book. I
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: suggested that a million women could be helped by the
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  Speaker 1: publishing of her own story. The thought was abhorrent to her.
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  Speaker 1: Her experience was something she had never voiced in words.
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  Speaker 1: It would be too intimate a discussion of herself and
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  Speaker 1: her family. She was sure her relatives would bitterly oppose
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  Speaker 1: such a confession. It took nearly a year to persuade
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  Speaker 1: this remarkable woman to put down on paper, from her
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  Speaker 1: recollections and from her old letters home, this simple story
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  Speaker 1: of a fine American life. She consented finally to write
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  Speaker 1: fragments of her life anonymously. We were pledged not to
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  Speaker 1: reveal her identity. A few changes in geography and time
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  Speaker 1: were made in her manuscript, but otherwise the story is
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  Speaker 1: true to life, laden with adventure, spirit and the American philosophy.
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  Speaker 1: She has refused to accept any remuneration for the magazine
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  Speaker 1: publication or for royalties on the book rights. The money
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  Speaker 1: accruing from her labor is being set aside in the
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Central Union Trust Company of New York City as a
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  Speaker 1: trust fund to be used in some charitable work. She
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  Speaker 1: has given her book to the public solely because she
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  Speaker 1: believes that it contains a helpful message for other women.
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  Speaker 1: It is the gracious gift of a woman who has
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  Speaker 1: a deep and passionate love for her country and a
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  Speaker 1: tender responsiveness to the needs of her own sex. Marie M.
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  Speaker 1: Maloney September one, nineteen twenty two and of preface recording
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  Speaker 1: by Sherry Gardner.
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  Speaker 2: Chapter one of The Log Cabin Lady. This is a
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  Speaker 2: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 2: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Recording by Sandra Estenson, The Log Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography.
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  Speaker 2: Chapter one. I was born in a log cabin. I
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: came to my pioneer mother in one of Wisconsin's bitterest winters.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty one years later, I was sailing for England, the
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  Speaker 2: wife of a diplomat who was one of Boston's wealthy
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  Speaker 2: and aristocratic sons. The road between, well, let it speak
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  Speaker 2: for itself. Merely to set this story on paper opens
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  Speaker 2: old wounds, deep but mercifully healed these many years. Yet,
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  Speaker 2: if another woman may find here comfort and illumination and
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  Speaker 2: a certain philosophy, I am glad, and I shall feel repeated.
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  Speaker 2: The first thing I remember is being grateful for windows.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I was three years old. My mother had set me
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  Speaker 2: to play on a mattress carefully placed in the one
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  Speaker 2: ray of sunlight streaming through the one glass window of
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  Speaker 2: our log cabin. Baby as I was, I had ached
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  Speaker 2: in the agonizing cold of a pioneer winter. Lying there,
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  Speaker 2: warmed by that blessed sunshine, I was suddenly aware of
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  Speaker 2: wonder and joy and gratitude. It was gratitude for glass,
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  Speaker 2: which could keep out the biting cold and let in
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  Speaker 2: the warm sun. To this day, windows give me pleasure.
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  Speaker 2: My father was a school teacher from New England, where
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  Speaker 2: his family had taught the Three Hours and the American
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  Speaker 2: Constitution since the days of Ben Franklin's Study Club. My
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  Speaker 2: mother was the daughter of a hard working Scotch immigrant.
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  Speaker 2: Father's family set store on ancestry. Mother's side was more practical.
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  Speaker 2: The year before my birth, these two young people started
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  Speaker 2: west in a prairie schooner to stake a homestead claim.
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  Speaker 2: Father's seaman's chest held a dictionary, Bancroft's History of the
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  Speaker 2: United States, several books of mathematics, Plutarch's Lives, a History
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  Speaker 2: of Massachusetts, a leather bound file of Civil War records,
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  Speaker 2: Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Shakespeare in two volumes, and The Legend
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  Speaker 2: of Sleepy Hollow. My mother took a Bible. I can
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  Speaker 2: still quote pages from every one of those books. Until
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  Speaker 2: I was fourteen, I saw no others except a primer
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  Speaker 2: homemade to teach me my letters. Because Vanity Fair contained
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  Speaker 2: simpler words than the others, it was given to me first.
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  Speaker 2: So at the age of seven, I was spelling out
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  Speaker 2: pages of the immortal Becky. My mother did not approve,
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  Speaker 2: but father laughed and protested that the child might as
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  Speaker 2: well begin with good things after mothers ate them. Last baby,
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  Speaker 2: she lay ill.
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  Speaker 3: For a year.
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  Speaker 2: The care of the children fell principally on my young shoulders.
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  Speaker 2: One day I found her crying. Mary, She said with
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  Speaker 2: a tenderness that was rare. If I die, you must
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  Speaker 2: take care of all your brothers and sisters. You will
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  Speaker 2: be the only woman within eighteen miles. I was ten
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  Speaker 2: years old. That night, and many other nights I lay
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  Speaker 2: awake trembling at the possibility of being left the only
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  Speaker 2: woman within eighteen miles. But mother did not die. I
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  Speaker 2: must have been a sturdy child, for with the little
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  Speaker 2: help father and his homestead partner could spare, I kept
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  Speaker 2: that home going until she was strong again. Every fall,
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  Speaker 2: the shoemaker made his rounds through the country, reaching our
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  Speaker 2: place last, for beyond us lay only virgin forest and
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  Speaker 2: wild beasts. His visit thrilled us more than the arrival
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  Speaker 2: of any king. To day, we had been cut off
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  Speaker 2: from the world for months. The shoemaker brought news from
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  Speaker 2: neighbors eighteen forty sixty, even one hundred and fifty miles away.
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  Speaker 2: Usually he brought a few newspapers, too, treasured afterward. For months,
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  Speaker 2: he remained a royal guest for many days, until all
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  Speaker 2: the family was shod up to my tenth birthday, we
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  Speaker 2: could not afford the newspaper subscription. But after that times
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  Speaker 2: were a little better, and the Boston Transcript began to
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  Speaker 2: come at irregular intervals. It formed our only tie with civilization,
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  Speaker 2: except for the occasional purely personal letter from back home.
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  Speaker 2: When I was fourteen, three tremendous events had marked my life.
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  Speaker 2: Sunlight through a window pane, the log rolling on the
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  Speaker 2: river when Father added two rooms to our cabin, and
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  Speaker 2: the night I thought Mother would die and leave me
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  Speaker 2: the only woman in eighteen miles. But the fourth event
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  Speaker 2: was the most tremendous. One night Father hurried in without
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  Speaker 2: even waiting to unload or water his team. He seemed
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  Speaker 2: excited and handed my mother a letter. Our great aunt
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  Speaker 2: Martha had willed Father her household goods and personal belongings
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  Speaker 2: and a modest sum that to us was a fortune.
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  Speaker 2: Some one back east awaited his instructions. Followed many discussions,
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  Speaker 2: but in the end my mother gained her way. Great
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  Speaker 2: aunt Martha's house goods were sold at auction. Father, however,
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  Speaker 2: insisted that her personal belongings be shipped to Wisconsin. After
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  Speaker 2: a long long wait, one day, Father and I rose
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  Speaker 2: at daybreak and rode thirty six miles in a springless
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  Speaker 2: wagon over ranchmen's roads, the giant's vertebrae. Jim Hill's men
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  Speaker 2: called it to the nearest express station, returning with a
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  Speaker 2: trunk and two packing cases. It was a solemn moment
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  Speaker 2: when the first box was opened. Then mother gave a
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  Speaker 2: cry of delight. Sheets and bedspreads edged with lace, real
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  Speaker 2: linen pillowcases with crocheted edgings, soft woolen blankets, and bright
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  Speaker 2: handmade quilts. Two heavy, lustrous tablecloths, and two dozen napkins,
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  Speaker 2: one white set hemmed and one red and white bore
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  Speaker 2: ordered with a soft fringe. What the world calls wealth
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  Speaker 2: has come to me in after years, nothing ever equalled
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  Speaker 2: in my eyes the priceless value of Great Aunt Martha's
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  Speaker 2: personal belongings. I was in a seventh heaven of delight.
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  Speaker 2: My father picked up the books and began to read,
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  Speaker 2: paying no attention to our ecstasies over dresses and ribbons,
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  Speaker 2: the box full of laces, or the little shell covered
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  Speaker 2: case holding a few ornaments in gold and silver and jet.
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  Speaker 2: We women did not stop until we'd explored every corner
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  Speaker 2: of that trunk and two packaging boxes. Then I picked
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  Speaker 2: up a napkin. What are these for? I asked curiously.
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  Speaker 2: My father slammed his books shut. I have never seen
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  Speaker 2: such a look on his face. How old are you, Mary,
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  Speaker 2: he demanded?
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  Speaker 3: Suddenly. I told him that I.
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  Speaker 2: Was going on fifteen, and you never saw a table napkin.
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  Speaker 2: His tone was bitter and accusing. I didn't understand. How
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  Speaker 2: could I. Father began to talk, his words growing more
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  Speaker 2: and more bitter. Mother defended herself hotly. Today I know
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  Speaker 2: that justice was on her side. But in that first
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  Speaker 2: adolescent self consciousness, my sympathies were all with father. Mother
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  Speaker 2: had neglected us. She had not taught us to use
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  Speaker 2: table napkins. Becky Sharp used them. People in history used them.
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  Speaker 2: I felt sure that Great Aunt Martha would have been horrified,
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  Speaker 2: even in Heaven, to learn that I had never even
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  Speaker 2: seen a table napkin. Our parents, core garrel dimmed the
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  Speaker 2: ecstasy of the personal belongings. From that time, we used
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: napkins and a tablecloth on Sundays, that is when anyone
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  Speaker 2: remembered it was Sunday. Great Aunt Martha's napkins opened up
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  Speaker 2: a whole new world for me, and they strengthened father's determination.
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  Speaker 2: To give his children an education. The september before I
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  Speaker 2: reached seventeen, we persuaded mother to let me go to
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  Speaker 2: Madison and study for half a year. So great was
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  Speaker 2: my eagerness to learn from books that I had given
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: no thought to people. Madison, my first town, showed me
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  Speaker 2: that my clothes were homemade and TACKI other girls wore
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  Speaker 2: store shoes and what seemed to me beautifully made dresses.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I was a backwoods gawk. I hated myself and our
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: home home. With many cautions, father had entrusted eighty dollars
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  Speaker 2: to me for the half year's expenses. I took the
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: money and bought my first pair of buttoned shoes and
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: a store dress with nine gores and stylish mutton leg sleeves.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It was poor stuff, not warm enough for winter, and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: together with a new coat and a hat, made a
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: large hole in my funds. I found work in a
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: kindly family, where in return for taking care of an
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: old lady, I received room and board and two dollars
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: a week. Four hours of my day were.
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  Speaker 3: Left for school.
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  Speaker 2: The following February brought me an appointment as a teacher
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: in a district school. At eighteen, dollars a month and
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: turnabout boarding in farmer's families. The next two years were
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: spent teaching and attending school in Madison. When I was twenty,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a gift from my father added to my savings and
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: made possible the realization of one of my dreams. I
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: went east for a special summer course. No tubes shuttled
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: under the Hudson in those days. From the ferryboat, I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: was suddenly dazzled with the vision of a towering gold
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: dome rising above the four and five story structures The
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: New York World Building was then the tallest in the world.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: To me, it was also the most stupendous. Impulsively, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: turned to a man leaning on the ferryboat railing beside me.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't that the most wonderful thing in the world? I gasped,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Not quite, he answered and looked at me. His look
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: made me uncomfortable. I could have spoken to any stranger
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: in Madison without embarrassment. It took me about twenty years
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: to understand why a plain, middle aged woman may chat
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: with a strange man anywhere on earth, while the same
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: conversation cheapens a good looking young girl. That summer I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: met my future husband. He was doing research at Columbia,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and we ran across each other constantly in the library.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I fairly lived there, for I found myself for the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: first time among a wealth of books, and I read everything, autobiographies, histories,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: and novels, good and bad. Tom's family and most of
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: his friends were out of town for July and August.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I had never met any one like him, and he
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: had never dreamed of anyone like me. We were friends
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: in a week and sweethearts in a month. Instead of
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: joining his family, Tom stayed in New York and showed
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: me the town. He took me to my first place.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Even now, I know that if I were king and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the Idol's Eye with Frank Daniels were good. One day
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: we were driving in an open carriage. His It was
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: upholstered in soft fawn color. The coachman wore fawn colored livery,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: and the horses were beautiful.
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  Speaker 3: I was very happy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: When we reached my boarding house again, I jumped out.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I was used to hopping from spring wagons. Please don't
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: do that again. Mary reproved Tom very gently, you might
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: hurt yourself. That amused me until a look from the
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: coachman suddenly conveyed to me that I had made a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: faux paw. Not long after, I hurried off a street
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: car ahead of Tom. This time he said nothing, but
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I have not forgotten the look on his face. Over
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: our marvelous meals and marvelous restaurants, Tom delighted to get
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: me started about home. Great aunt Martha's personal belongings amused
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: him hugely. He never tired of the visiting shoemaker, nor
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of the carpenter, who declared indignantly that if we wore
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: decent clothes, we wouldn't need our bench seats plained smooth.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: But some things I never told about the table napkins.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: For instance, we were married in September. Our honeymoon we
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: spent fishing and roughing it in the Canadian wilds. I
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: felt at home and blissful. I could cook and fish
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: and make a bed in the open as well as
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: any man. It was heaven, but it left me entirely
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: unprepared for the world I was about to enter.
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  Speaker 3: Not once did.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Tom say Mary, we do this or that in our family.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: He was too happy, and I suppose he never thought
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: of it. As for me, I wasted no worry on
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: his family. They would be kind and sympathetic and simple
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: like Tom. They would love me and I would love them.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: The day after we returned from Canada to New York,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I spent looking over Tom's personal belongings as great a
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: revelation as Aunt Martha's. His richly bound books, his beautiful furniture,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: his pictures. Everything was perfect. That night, Tom made an announcement.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: The family gets home to night and they will come
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to call tomorrow.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Why don't we go to the.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Station to meet them, I suggested to Day. I apprear
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: she ate better than I could. Then the gentle tact
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: with which Tom told me his family was strong on
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: good form and that the husband's family calls on the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: bride first. My husband's family came, and I realized that
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: I was a mere baby in a new world, a
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: complicated and not very friendly world at that. Though they
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: never put it into words, they made me understand in
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: their cruel, polite way, that Tom was the hope of
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the family and his sudden marriage to a stranger had
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: been a great shock, if not more, The beautiful ease
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: of my husband's women folk filled me with admiration and despair.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I felt guilty of something I was queer. Their voices,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the end to nation, even the tilt of their chins,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: seemed to stamp these new in laws as aristocrats of
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: another race. Yet the same old New England stock that
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: sired their ancestors produced.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: My father's fathers.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Theirs had stayed in Boston and had had time to
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: teach their children grace and refinement and subtleties. Mine fought
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: for their existence in a new country, and when men
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and women fight for existence, life becomes very simple. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: felt only my own misery that day. Now I realized
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: that the meeting between Tom's mother and his wife was
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: a mutual misery.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I was crude, no doubt to her.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I seemed even common with every one except Tom. I
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: seemed awkward and stupid.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Poor mother in law.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: When she rose to go, I saw her to her carriage.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: She was extremely insistent that I should not, But this
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: was Tom's mother, and I was determined to leave no
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: friendly act undone at home. It would have been an
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: offense not to see the company to their wagon. Even
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: in Madison, we would have escorted a caller to his carriage. Again,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: it was the coachman who, with one chill look, warned
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: me that I had sinned before Tom came home that afternoon.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: He called on his mother, so no explanations from me
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: were necessary. He knew it all, and doubtless much more
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: than had escaped me. Like the princely gentleman he always was,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: the poor boy tried to soften that afternoon's blows by
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: saying social customs were stupid and artificial, and I knew
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: all the important things in life. The other few little
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: things in habit of his world he could easily tell
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: me few and little. There were thousands, and they loomed
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: bigger each day. Moreover, Tom did not tell me either
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: manlike he forgot or he was afraid of hurting my feelings.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: One of the few things Tom did tell me, I
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: was forever forgetting. Napkins belonged to Sundays at home, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: they were not washed often. It was a long standing
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: habit to save back breaking work for my mother to
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: fold my napkin neatly afterwards. Unlearning that and acquiring the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: custom of messing up one's napkin and leaving it carelessly
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: on the table was the meanest work of my life.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Interesting guests came to Tom's house, and I would grow
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: absorbed in their talk. Not until we were leaving the
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: table what I realized that my napkin lay neatly folded
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: and squared in the midst of casually rumpled heaps. One
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: night years later, I sat between Jim Hill and Senator
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Bailey of Texas at dinner. Both men folded their napkins.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I loved them for it. During that first year, Tom
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: made up a little theater party for a classmate who
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: had just married a Philadelphia girl. With memories of Ben Franklin,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: William Penn, Liberty Bell, and all the grand old characters
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: of the city of brotherly love. I looked forward eagerly
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to making a new friend. The Philadelphian was even more
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: languid than Tom's mother. She chopped her words, and there
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: were no aws in her English. I tried to break
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: the ice by talking of the tradition of her city
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: she was born. She knew only Philadelphia's social register. Just
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: to play tit for tat. Twice during the evening I
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: quoted from Julius Caesar and scored. We had just settled
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: down in Old Martin's Restaurant for after theater supper when
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: two tall gentlemen entered the room there's Tom Platt and
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Chauncey Depew, remarked Tom's friend casually. United States senators are
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: important people in Wisconsin. At least they were when I
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: was young. If a senator visited our community, everybody turned out.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I knew much of both these men, and Tom had
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: often spoken warmly of Depew. As they approached our table,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Tom and his friends stood up thrilled. I rose hastily.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: My eyes were too busy to see Tom's face, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I did not realize until afterward that the only other
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: woman had remained coolly seated. On our way home, Tom
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: told me, in his gentle way, never to be rising
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: from a dining table to acknowledge an introduction, even to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: a woman or a senator. That night, a tormenting devil
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: with the face of the other woman.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Kept me awake.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: For the first time since my marriage. I felt homesick
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: for the Prairies. And then we were invited to visit
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Tom's aunt Elizabeth in Boston and meet the whole family.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I was sick with dread. I begged Tom to tell
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: me some of the things I should and should not do.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Be your own sweet self, and they'll love you, he promised.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Kissing me.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: He meant it, dear soul, but I knew better from
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: the very first minute. Tom's aunt, Elizabeth, made me conscious
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: of her disapproval. In after years, I won the old
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: lady's affection and real respect, but I never spent a
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: completely happy hour in her presence. The night we arrived,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: she gave me a formal dinner. Some dozen additional guests
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: dropped in later, and I was bewildered by new faces.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: And strange names.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Later in the evening, I noticed a distinguished looking, middle
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: aged gentleman standing alone just outside the drawing room.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Door, hurrying out.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I invited him to come in. He inquired courteously if
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: there was anything he could do for me. Yes, indeed,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I assured him come in and talk to me. He
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: looked shy and surprised, I insisted. Then Tom's aunt called me,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: drawing me hastily into a corner, demanded, why was I
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: inviting a servant into her drawing room? Servant, he looks
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: like a senator, I protested. He's dressed exactly like every
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: other man at the party, and he looks twice as
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: important as.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Most of them.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Didn't you notice he addressed you as madam pursued Aunt Elizabeth.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: But it's perfectly proper to call a married woman madam.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Foreigners always do it, I defended, can't you tell a
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: servant when you see one? Inquired the old lady Icily,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I begged to know how one could know all Boston
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: was summed up in her answer, you are supposed to
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: know the other people. Tom's wife could have drowned in
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: a thimble. The third day of our visit, we were
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: at the dinner table when I saw Aunt Elizabeth's face
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: change for the worse.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Her head went.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Up higher, and her lips drew longer. Finally, she turned
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: to me, why do you cut your meat like a
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: dog's dinner?
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: She snapped.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Tom's protesting exclamation did.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Not stop her.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I laid my knife and fork on my plate and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: folded my hands in my lap to hide their trembling.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Time made dim many hurts, but with the last flicker
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: of intelligence, I shall remember that scene. Even then, in
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: a flash, I saw the symbolism of it. On one side,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: rare mahogany, shining silver, deft servants, napkins to rumple, leisure
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: for the niceties of life. On the other hand, a
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: log cabin, my tired mother, with new babies always coming,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: father slaving to homestead, acclaim and push civilization a little
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: farther over our American continent. A great tenderness for my
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: parents filled my heart and overflowed in my eyes. I have,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I confess, had moments of bitterness toward them, but that
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: was not one of them. I think I can tell you,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: I answered, as quietly as I could. It's very simple.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I was the first baby, and mother cut up my
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: food for me. After a while, she cut up food
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: for two babies. By the time the third came, I
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: had to do my own cutting. Naturally, I did it
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: just as mother had. Then I began to help cut
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: up food for the other babies. It's a baby habit,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: and I must now learn to cut one bite at
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: a time, just like a civilized grown person. Even Aunt
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth was silenced, but Tom rose from the table swearing.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: My father would have not permitted a cowpuncher to use
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: such language before my mother, But I loved Tom for it. However,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: I did not sleep that night. Next morning, Tom's Aunt
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth apologized and for bayback was really unbending. Some days
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: later we returned to New York, and I thought my
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: troubles were over for a time. But the first night
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Tom came home full of excitement. He had been appointed
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to the Diplomatic Corps and we were to sail for
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: England within a month. The news struck chilled hair to
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: my heart. With so much still to learn in my
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: native America, what on earth should I do in English society?
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: End of chapter one Chapter two of The Log Cabin Lady.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Sandra Estenson, The Log
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: Chapter two.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: More than two months passed after the night my husband
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: announced his foreign appointment. Before we sailed for England, I
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: planned to study and have long talks with him about
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the customs of fashionable and diplomatic Europe. But alas I
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: reckoned without the friends and pretended friends who claimed the
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: time of a man of Tom's importance. Besides, he and
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I had so many other things to discuss. So the
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: sailing time approached, and then he announced that we were
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: to be presented at court. I was thrilled half with
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: fear and half with joy. I remembered from my reading
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: of history that some of England's kings had not spoken English,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: and that French had been the court language. I visited
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: a bookstore and purchased what was recommended as an easy
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: road to French, and spent all morning learning to say
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: laurrange este unfruit. I read the instructions for placing the
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: tongue and puckering the lips, and repeated listen lay until
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I was dizzy. Then I looked through our bookcases for
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: a life of Benjamin Franklin. I knew he had gone
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: to court and played with queens, but the great statesman,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: author orator gave me no guide to correct form or
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: English social customs. Instead, I grew so interested in the
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: history of his work in England and France, and his
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: inspiring achievement in obtaining recognition and credit for the United States,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: that dinner time arrived before I realized I had not
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: discovered what language was spoken at court, nor what one
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: talked about, nor if one talked at all. Tom roared
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: when I made my confession. With his boyish good humor,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: he promised to answer all my questions on board ship,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: so without a care. In those delicious days that followed,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I wandered down Sixth Avenue to New York's then most
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: correct shops, buying clothes and clothes and clothes. I bought
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: practical and impractical gifts for the twins back in Wisconsin,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: and for all the family and those good friends who
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: had helped me through Madison. The weeks before we sailed,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: my husband said, out of a clear blue sky, be
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: sure you have the right clothes, Mary. The English are
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: conservative lot. Suddenly I was conscious again that I did
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: not know the essential things the wife of a diplomat
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: ought to know what to wear and when a million
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: and one tremendous social trifles. The moment our magnificent liner
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: left the dock, I heaved a sigh of relief.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Tom would be.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Mine for two whole weeks, and all the questions I
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: had saved up would be answered. That evening he announced,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: we don't dress for dinner the first night out dress
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: for dinner?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I asked, what do you mean?
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: And then very gently he gave me my first lesson.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: I had never seen anything bigger than a ferry boat.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: How could I guess that even on an ocean liner,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: we did not leave formality behind. The party dresses so
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: carefully selected the long, rich velvet cape I had thought
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: outrageously extravagant, and the satin slippers and the suede I
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: had packed them all carefully in the trunk and sent
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: them to the hold of the ship. But with the
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: aid of a little cash, the steward finally produced my
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: treasure trunk, and thereafter I dressed for dinner. The two
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: weeks I had expected my husband to give me held
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: no quiet hours. There is no such thing except when
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: one is seasick as being alone aboard a ship. Tom
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: was popular, good at cards and deck games, always ready
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: to play, and the fourth day out I was too
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: ill to worry about the customs of the court of
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Saint James. It was not until just before we reached
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: England that I began to feel myself again. I stood
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: on deck, thrilled with the tall ships and the steamers,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: the fishushing smacks, and the smaller craft in Southampton Harbor.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: What will be the first thing you do in London?
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Somebody asked me, go to Mayfair to find the home
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: of Becky Sharp. I answered, Becky Sharp was as much
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: a part of English history to me as Henry the Eighth,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: or Anne Boleyne, or William the Conqueror. When my husband
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: and I were alone, he said, I think they have
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: picked out number twenty one Curzon Street as the house
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: where Becky Sharp is supposed to have lived. But what
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: a funny thing for you to want to see. First
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: I remembered what old Lord Steyne had said to Becky, you,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: poor little earthen pipkin, you want to swim down the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: stream with great copper kettles. All women are alike, everybody
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: is struck for what is not worth the having. I
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: was quite sure I did not want to drift down
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: the stream with copper kettles. I only wanted to be
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: with Tom, to see England with him, to enjoy doctor
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Johnson's haunts, to go to the cheddar Cheese and the strand,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: to Waterloo Bridge, and down the road the Romans built
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: before England was England.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: I wanted to.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: See the world without the world seeing me. In my
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: heart was no desire to be a copper kettle. But
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: I had been cast into the stream, and down it
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I must go, like a little fungus, holding to the
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: biggest copper kettle I knew. I told my husband this.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: It was the first time he had been really irritated
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: with me. Why do you worry about these things? He protested,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: You have a good head and a good education. You
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: are the loveliest woman in England. Be your own natural
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: self and the English will love you. But I remembered
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: another occasion when he had told me to be my
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: own natural sweet self. How about what happened to Becky?
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: I asked.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Tom went into a rage. Why do you insist on
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: comparing yourself with that little The word he used was
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: an ugly one. I did not speak to him again
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: until after we had passed the Government inspecters. I shall
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: never forget my first days in London, the old quiet
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: city where everybody seemed so comfortable and easygoing. There was
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: no show, no pretense. The people in the shops and
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: on the street bore the ear marks of thrift. I
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: understood where New England got its spirit. The first morning
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: at the Alexandra Hotel, Tom fell naturally into the European
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: habit of having coffee and fruit and a roll brought
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: to his bed. I wanted to get down to the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: dining room. My husband said it was not done, and
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: that I would be lonesome. The days of ranch life
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: had taught me to get up with the chickens, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: it was not done in London. The second morning, the
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: early sun was too much for me. I dressed, left
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the hotel and walked for several hours before a perfect
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: servant brought shining plates and marmalade, fruit and coffee to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: my big husky football player's side. I've lived many years
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: in Europe, but I have never grown used to having
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: breakfast brought to my room. That second rainy morning, Tom
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: left me alone with the promise of being back for luncheon.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I picked up a London Morning paper and glanced at
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the Personal column. I have read it every day since
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: when I could get hold of the London Times. All
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: of human nature and the ups and downs of man
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: are there, from second hand lace to the mortgaged jewels
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: of broken down nobility, from sporting games and tickets for sale,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: to relatives wanted, and those mysterious suggestive unsigned messages from
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: home or to home. I read the news of the war.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: We in America did not know there was a war,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: but Greece and Crete were at each other's throat, and
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Turkey was standing waiting to crowd the little ancient nation
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: into Armenia or off the map. There was the Indian famine.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: We did not talk about it at home, but it
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: had first place in the London paper and the Queen's birthday.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: It was to be celebrated by feeding the poor of
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: East London and paying the debts of the hospitals. There
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: was something so humane, so kindly, so civilized about it.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: All.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: I love England, I said, and that first impression balanced
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the scale many a time later when I did not
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: love her. The third or fourth day brought an invitation
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: to dine at a famous house on Grosvenor Square with
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: a duke. I pestered my husband with question, what should
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: I wear?
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: What should I talk about? He just laughed.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: The paper had reported a levee ordered by the Queen,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: describing the gowns and jewels worn by the ladies. I
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: had little jewelry, a diamond ring which Tom gave me
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: before we were married, a bracelet, two brooches, and a
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: string of gold beads which were fashionable in America. I
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: put them all on with my best bib and tucker.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: When we were dressed, Tom gave me one look and said,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: why do you wear all that junk. I took off
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: one of the brooches and the string of gold beads.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: When our carriage drew up to the house on Grosnor Square,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: liveried servants stood at each side of the door. Liveried
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: servants guided us inside. There's a gold carpet, paintings of
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen in gorgeous attire, and murals and tapestries
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: in the marble halls. But I quickly forgot all of
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: this grandeur listening to the names of guests being called
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: off as they entered the drawing room. Mister Gladstone and
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Missus Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, and the Marquis of Salisbury, Missus
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Humphrey Ward, looking fatter and older than I had expected. Officers, colonels,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: viscounts and ladies, and then Tom and Mary, but they
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: were not called off that way. I wanted to meet
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: mister Gladstone, and I hoped I might even be near
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: him at dinner, but I sat between a colonel and
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: a young captain of the Scots Graves. Mister Gladstone was
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: on the other side of the table. It was a
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: huge table, more than five feet wide and very long.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: My husband was somewhere out of sight. At the other end,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: mister Gladstone mentioned the fund being raised for the victims
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: of the Paris Opra Comique fire. It is good form
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: to be silent in the presence of death, especially when
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: death is colossal, and the English never failed to follow
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: good form. There was a sudden lull at our end
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: of the table. It was I who broke that silence.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: I was touched by the generosity of England and said so.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Since my arrival, I had daily noted that England was
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: giving to India, sending relief to Greece and Armenia, raising
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: a fund for the fire sufferers, and celebrating the the
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Queen's jubilee by feeding the poor. I addressed my look
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: and my admiring words to mister Gladstone. Either my sincerity
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: or the embarrassment he knew would follow. My disregard of
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: the thing that is done moved mister Gladstone's sympathy. He
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: smiled across the table at me and answered, I'm so
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: glad you see these good points of England. It was
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: about the most gracious thing that was ever done to
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: me in my life. In England. It is bad form
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: to speak across the table. One speaks to one's neighbor
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: on the right or one's neighbor on the left. But
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: the line across the table is foreign soil and must
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: not be shouted across. That night, my husband said, I
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: forgot to tell you, they never talk across the table
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: in England. I chide at him, and with some cause.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I had soon discovered that in England, as in America,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: it was not enough to be my own natural self.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: But I came to love mister Gladstone long after that.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: I told him the story of missus Grant, who, when
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: an awkward young man had broken one of her priceless
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: sevres after dinner coffee cups, dropped hers on the floor
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: to meet him on the same level. Any woman who
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: to put any one at ease will break a priceless
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: sevres cup is heroic, I said. His answer, though flippant,
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: was pleasant. Any man who would not smile across the
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: table at a lovely woman is a fool. Mister Gladstone
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: always wore a floor in his buttonhole, a big loose
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: collar that never fitted, a floppy black necktie, and trousers
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: that needed a valet's attention. He was the greatest combination
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: of propriety and utter disregard of conventions I have ever seen.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: The event next in importance to a presentation at court
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: was a tea at which the tea planter, Sir Thomas Lipton,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: was one of the guests. He was not Sir Thomas then,
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: but was very much in the limelight, having contributed twenty
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: five thousand pounds to the fund collected by the Princess
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: of Wales to feed the poor of London in commemoration
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The Earl of Lanthem, then
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: the Lord Chamberlayne, who looked like Santa Claus and smiled
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: like Andrew Carnegie, was.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Among the guests.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: So were mister and Missus Gladstone. Since the night he
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: had talked to me across the table, I always felt
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: that mister Gladstone was my best friend in England. He
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: had a sense of humor, So I said, is there
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: anything pointed in asking the tea king do a tea?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: That amused Gladstone? He could not forgive Lipton parting his
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: hair in the middle That night, I repeated my joke
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: to Tom. Instead of smiling, he said that's not the
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: way to get on in England. It's too becky sharpish.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: And then came the day of the Queen's salon. Victoria
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: did not often have audiences, the Prince of Wales or
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: some other member of the royal family, usually holding levees
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: and receiving presentations in her name. Tom had warned me
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: that there were certain clothes to be worn at presentation.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I asked one of my American friends at the embassy,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: who directed me to a hair dresser, the most important thing,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: it seemed, being one's head. She told me also to
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: wear full evening dress with long white gloves, and to
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: remove the glove of the right hand. The hair dresser
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: asked about my jewels. Remembering what Tom had said about junk,
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I said I would wear no jewels. She was horrified
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: I would have to wear some. She insisted, if only
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: a necklace of pearls. She tactfully suggested that if my
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: jewels had not arrived, I could rent them from mister
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: somebody on the street. It was frequently done, she said,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: by foreigners. My friend at the embassy was politely surprised
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: that Tom's wife would think of renting real horror imitation jewels.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: In the end, I insisted upon going without jewels. I
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: had the required plumes in my hair, and the veil
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: that was correct form at court, and my lovely evening
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: gown and pearl embroidered slippers, which were to me like
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: Cinderella's at the ball. Before I left the hotel, I
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: asked Tom to look at me critically. I was still young,
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: very young, very much in love and unacquainted with the
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: ways of the world, and so heaven came down into
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: my heart. When Tom took me into his arms and
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: kissing me, said, there was never such a lovely queen.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: It was about three o'clock when we reached the Pimlico entrance.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Guards were on duty, and men who looked like princes
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: are very important personages and costume white stockings, black pumps, buckles,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: breeches and gay.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: Coats stood at the door.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Inside the hall, a gold carpet stretched to the marble stairs.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: It was a wonderful place, and I wanted to stop
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: and look. I was conscious of being a rubber neck.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I might never see another palace again. We were guided
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: up wonderful stairs and led into a sumptuous room, where
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: with the other guests, we waited for the arrival of
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: the Queen and the royal family. No one does anything
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: or says anything at a salon. Drawing room is a
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: sacred right in England. It is recorded on the first
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: page of the News. Taking precedence over wars, decisions of
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Supreme courts, famines and international controversies. Her majesty receives to
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: the Englishman. To be presented at court is to be
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: set up in England as class, to be worshiped by
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: those who have not been in the presence of the Queen,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: and to pay a little more to the butcher and milliner.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: I should have loved that drawing room if I could
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: have avoided the presentation. It was an impressive picture. The
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Queen with a face like a royal coin, a fine,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: generous forehead and beautiful nose, her intelligent and kindly eyes,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: her ample figure. Her dignity come from long long years
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: of rule back of her Prince of Wales and the
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister, who in later years I found myself always
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: comparing to little mister Carnegie, the Viscount Curzon with his
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: royal look, and in the foreground Sir s ponceby Fane
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: in white silk stockings, pumps and buckles with sword and
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: gold lace, and high collared swallow tailed coat. I admired
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: the Queen's black moire dress, her head dress of priceless lace,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: her diamonds, her high necked dress held together with more diamonds,
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: and her black gloves in striking contrast to our own.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: I was enjoying the picture. Then my name was called.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I had been thinking such kindly things of England, mister
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Balfour fighting for general education, mister Gladstone struggling to make
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: England push Turkey back and save Greece. All England raising
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: money for the fire sufferers of Paris and the Indian famine.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: What a humanitarian race they were. I felt as pro
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: England as any of the satellites in that room, and
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: almost as much odd. But back of it all was
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: a natural United States, be natural as you were born impulse.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Neither Back Bay Boston nor Tom's Philadelphia friends had been
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: able to repress it. When my name was called and
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I stepped up. I made a little bow I had
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: practiced for hours the day before and that morning, and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: then as I looked into the eyes of the Queen,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I held out my hand. It was the instinctive action
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: of a free born American. I've realized in the years since,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: what a real queen. She was smiling. She extended her hand,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: but not.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: To be touched.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: It was a little wave, a little imitation of my
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: own impulsive outstretching to a friend. Then her eyes went
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: to the next person, and I was on my way,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: having been presented at court and done what is not
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: done in England. Tom's mission in England was important. He
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: had friends, and there were distinguished people in England who
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: regarded him and his family of sufficient value to take
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: us abroad. They were more gracious and kindly. But Tom's
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: eyes were not smiling. That night, my husband said some
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: very frank things to me. His position and even the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: credit of our country, to some extent, depend upon our conduct.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: He did not say he was ashamed of me, and
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: in my heart I did not think he was. But
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: he regretted that I had not been trained in the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: little things upon which England put so much weight. He
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: suggested my employing a social secretary. What I need, Tom,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: I said, is a teacher. You have told me these
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: customs are not important. They are important. I need some
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: one to teach them to me. And I propose to
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: get a teacher. In the personal columns of the Times,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: I had read this advertisement, A lady of aristocratic birth
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: and social training desires to be of service to a
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: good paying guest. I swallowed my pride and answered it.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: I was not her paying guest, but I employed this
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Scotch lady of aristocratic birth and social experience. On the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: first day at luncheon, which we ate privately in my apartment,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: she said, in England, a knife is held as you
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: hold a pen, the handle coming up above the thumb
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: and between the thumb and first finger. My sense of
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: humor permitted me to ask, after trying at once, what
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: do you do when the meat is tough? The Scottish
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: aristocrat never smiled. It isn't, she answered. I was humiliated
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: and a little soul sick. Before that luncheon ended, I
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: had been told to break each bite of my bread.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: A lady never bites a piece of bread. I had
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: been told to use a knife to separate my fish.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: When I had learned, oh so carefully in America to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: eat fish with a fork and a piece of bread.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I might have laughed about it had not so much
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: been at stake, even Tom's respect end of chapter two,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: read by Sandra Estenson.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: Chapter three of The Log Cabin Lady. This is a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Recording by Marianna Fus The Log Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: Chapter three. The Scotch Lady of aristocratic birth and social
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: experience lived with me one terrible week. On the seventh day,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I came home from shopping with presents for the twins
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: back in Wisconsin. A day or so earlier, while my
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: mentor was out of the room, I had asked the
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: chef waiter of our floor about himself and his family,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: and found out that his family, too included twins. So
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: the present for my family I also bought some for his.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: Mister mac cleod, the Member of Parliament from Scotland, and
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: Lord Lansdowne happened to be calling when I arrived, and
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: Tom and the Scotch Lady were there. The chef waiter
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: was taking the coats of the gentlemen callers. I received
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: the guests, acknowledged the introductions, and then as I removed
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: my own coat. I handed him the little package. When
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: we were alone, the Scotch lady turned to me Me
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: in England, she said, ladies never converse with their servants,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: particularly in the presence of guests. Then she sealed her doom.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: Ladies never make gifts to their servants. She added, their secretaries,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: housekeepers or companions dispersed their bounty. I remembered the old
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: u s a an American chef waiter might hope to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: be the father of a president. On the ranch I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: had cooked for men of less education and much worse
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: manners than this domestic who brought my athletic husband's breakfast
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: to his bedside, and who happened to be the proud
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: father of twins. I would learn table manners from an
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: English lady of aristocratic birth and social experience. But when
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: it came to the human act of a little gift
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: to a faithful servant, I declared my American independence. I
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: was homesick for Wisconsin, homesick for real and simple people.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: I wanted to go home. That night, Tom and I
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: had our first real quarrel, and it was over my
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: dismissal of the Scotch lady of aristocratic birth. Life became intolerable.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: For a while, I dragged through days of bitter homesickness.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: Nothing seemed real, no one seemed sincere. Life was a stage.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: Everybody seemed to be acting a part and speaking their
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: pieces with guttural voices. Even my husband's voice sounded different
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: or else. I realized for the first time that Boston
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: apes London English. Tom had learned his mother tongue in Boston,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: and now suddenly he seemed like a foreigner to me,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: simply because he spoke like those other foreigners. The sun
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: went out of my heaven. I was dumb with loneliness
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: and sick with the fear of lost faith. Could it
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: be that my husband was affecting these English mannerisms. Certainly
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: he seemed at home in England, while I seemed to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: be adrift alone in an arctic ocean. I had no
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: friend in England, and more and more my husband's special
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: work was engrossing him. When we were together, I felt
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: tongue tied. He had tried to be gentle with me,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: but I was strayed in this world of his, and
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: lonely and sensitive. I had dreamed so much of this world,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: and now that I was in it. It was false
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: and petty. I longed for the United States, for my Northwest,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: for my hills and wide far plains. I wanted to
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: meet somebody from Madison who smiled like a friend. One
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: day Tom looked at me searchingly and said, I must
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: be ill. I confessed to a little homesickness. Tom became
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: very attentive. He took me sight seeing. We lunched at
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: the Quaint Inn, where Dickens found his inspiration for Pickwick Papers,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: and where the literary lights of London foregathered and still
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: foregathered for luncheon. We sat in one of the cozy
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: little stalls, just Tom and I. Suddenly it swept over
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: me that life had gone all wrong. Here was a
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: dream come true, and no joy in my heart. Tom
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: asked me for my thoughts. I told him quite frankly,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: I was thinking of home. I was thinking of mother
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: in her cotton house dress, with her knitted shop around
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: her shoulders, of Father in his jeans and high boots,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: tramping over the range with the men. I saw the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: cow and the pigs and the chickens, the smelly corral
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: and the water hole, the twins trying to rub each
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: other's face in the mud, and I was thinking Tom
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: wouldn't fit into my world and I could not belong
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: to his. That was the second time I heard Tom
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: swear he wanted to know what kind of snob I
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: thought he was. He'd be as much at home with
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Dad on the ranch as he was in London. The
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: fault is with you, he said. You're not adaptable, and
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: you don't try to be. Tom didn't understand. He never
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: did in all the years together, which he made so
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: rich and happy. Tom never understood how hard and bitter
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: a school was that first year of my married life.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: But Tom did try to give me a good time
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: in London. He took me to interesting places and we
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: were entertained by a number of people, mostly ponderous and
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: so stupid. Tom did not suggest that we entertain in
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: our turn. I think he felt I was not ready
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: for it, although even in after years, when we talked
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: frankly about many things, he would never admit this. I
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: shall never forget my first weekend party in England. I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: was not well, and Tom man like felt sure the change,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: a trip down to Essex and new people would do
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: me good. The thought of the country and a visit
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: with some good simple country folk appealed to me too,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: so I packed the bags and met Tom at Victoria
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: station at eleven o'clock. Alas it is a far cry
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: from a Montana ranch to a gentleman's estate in England,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: my vision of a quiet visit down on the farm
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: vanished the minute we stepped off the train. Liveried coachmen
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: collected our baggage. They seemed to be discussing something. Then
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: I heard Tom say, I guess that's all. I'll wire
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: back for the rest of it. We were led to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: a handsome cart drawn by a fine tandem team, and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: Tom and I were alone for a minute. My god, Mary,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: he burst out, didn't you bring any clothes for us?
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: I certainly have, I retorted, sure, I was in the
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: right this time. Your night shirt and my nightgown, your
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: toilet articles and mine, a change of underclothes, a clean
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: shirt and two collars for you, and my new striped
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: silk waist. I shall never forget Tom's expression. Do you
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: know where we are going? He groaned, to one of
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: the grandest houses in England. Oh Lord, I ought to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: have told you you'll need all the clothes you have
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: down here, and and a valet and maid will unpack
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: the bags. Oh hell, After more of the same kind
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: of talk, he began to cook up some yarn to
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: tell the valet. Suddenly all that is free born in
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: me rose to the surface. Is the thing for gentlemen
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: to be afraid of? The valet? I asked, my husband,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: does a servant regulate your life and set your standards?
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: Tom was quiet for several moments. Then he took my
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: hand and said, very earnestly, Mary, don't you ever lose
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: your respect for the real things. It will save both
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: of us. After a while he added, just the same,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: I'll have to lie out of this baggage hole. He
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: did in a very casual, laughing way, such a positive
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: set of lies that I marveled and began to wonder
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: how much of Tom was acting and how much was real.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: Tom went back to London on the next train and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: reached the farm with our baggage before it was time
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: to dress for the eight o'clock dinner. Dinner was long
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: and stupid. After dinner, the women went into the drawing
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: room and gossiped about politics and personalities until the men
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: joined them. When they sat down for cards, I did
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: not know how to play cards, and so was left
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: with a garrulous old woman who had eaten and drunk
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: over much. It had been a long day for me.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: I was ill and tired. Suddenly sleep began to overpower me.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: I batted my eyes to keep them open. I tried
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: looking at the crystal lights, but my leaden eyes could
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: not face them. The constant drone of that old woman
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: was putting me to sleep. I tried to say a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: few words now and then to wake myself. I felt
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: myself slipping once. My head dropped and came up with
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: a jerk. I watched the great French clock. Its hands
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: did not seem to move. I looked at Tom. He
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: was absorbed in his game. I could not endure it
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: another minute. I went over and said good night to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: my hostess, who had spoken to me only once since
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: my arrival. Drowsy as I was, I noticed she seemed surprised.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: Oh no, I told her, I'm not ill, only very sleepy.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: How good my pillow felt. The next morning, Tom was cross.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: I had made a faux pas. I had shown I
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: was bored and peeved and had gone to bed before
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: the hostess indicated it was bedtime. It wasn't done in England.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: What do you do if you can can't keep awake?
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: I asked, you slip out quietly, go to your room,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: ask a maid to call you after you have had
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: forty winks. Then you go back and pretend you are
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: having a good time, said Tom. There were some bitter
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: hours after we got back to London, but Tom won
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: and I promised to get a companion. Then there came
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: into my life the most wonderful of friends. She was
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: the widow of a British Army officer who had been
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: killed in India, and her only child was dead. She
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: was a woman of education and heart. She understood my needs,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: all of them, and I interested her. She had seen
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: great suffering. She had a deep feeling for humanity and
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: an honest desire to be of use in the world.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: In the English Register, my companion was listed as the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: Honorable Evelyn, but we quickly got down to Mary and Eve.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: We loved each other. Eve went to France with us
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: a few months later. She made me talk French with her.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: My first formal dinner in France was a pleasant surprise.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: It was like a great family party, not dull and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: quiet like the English dinner and ever so much more fun.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: Everybody participated. If there was one line at the table,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: everybody shared him. There's something in being born on a
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: silken couch. Nothing surprises you. You are at ease anywhere
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: in the world. Eve fitted into Paris as naturally as
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: in her native London. I began to feel at home
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: there myself. It was a city of happy people, care free, natural, sympathetic.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: There was a lack of restraint, which, after the oppressive
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: dignity of London, was a rare treat. No one was critical.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: Everyone accepted my halting and faulty French without ridicule or condescension.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: The amiability and the friendliness of the French people thawed
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: my heart and began to lift me out of my
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: slough of homesickness. Happiness came back to me. There had
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: been hours in England when only the knowledge that a
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: woman's rarest gift was coming to me, and that Tom
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: was proud and happy about it, kept me from running
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: away back to the simple life of my own United States.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: I was homesick for mother. Babies were a mystery to me.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: Although I had helped Mother with all of hers, we
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: had buried three of them in home made coffins, pioneering
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: as a ruthless scythe and only the fit survive. I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: began to understand my mother and the glory in the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: character which never faltered, although she was alone and life
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: had been hard. How could I whine when I had
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: Tom and a good friend and life was like a playground.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: I loved the French. They regard life with a frankness
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: which sometimes shocked my preserved Boston husband. He never accepted intimacy.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: The restraint of old England was still in his blood.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: The free winds of the prairie had swept it from mine.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: My new friends in Paris discovered my happy secret. It
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: was my all absorbing thought, and I was delighted to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: be able to discuss it. Frankly. Motherhood is the great
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: and natural event in the life of a woman in France,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: and no one makes a secret of it. I was
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: very happy in Paris, and then Tom had to go
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: to Vienna. Not even Tom Eve and the promised baby
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: could make me happy there. In all the world, I
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: had seen no place where the line of class distinction
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: was so closely drawn, where social customs were so rigid,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: and court forms so sacred as at the Austrian capital.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: Learning the social customs of Vienna seemed as endless as
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: counting the pebbles on a beach, and about as useful.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: The clock regulated our habits in Vienna up to eleven o'clock.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: Certain attire was proper. If your watch stopped, you were
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: sure to break a social law. I once saw a
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: distinguished diplomat in distress because he found himself at an
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: official function at eleven thirty with a black tie or
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: without one. I've forgotten which. At first it offended me
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: to receive an invitation or a command to appear at
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: a formal function with an accompanying slip telling exactly what
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: to wear. Then I laughed about it. Finally I rebelled
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: on the plea of ill health. I made Tom do
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: the social honors for me, while even I did the
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: museums and the galleries and the music fetes. Years later
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: I went back to Vienna, and I did not discredit
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: my country. But I never loved the city. I enjoyed
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: its art, its fascinating shops, its picturesque streets and people,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: and its beautiful women. But for me, Vienna has the
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: faults of France. And England, the poverty and arrogance of
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: London and the frivolity of Paris without their redeeming qualities.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: So I was glad to return to England. The second
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: day in London, Tom took me to an exhibition important
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: in the art world, or at least in the official
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: life of London. Everybody who was somebody was there. I
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: saw the Princess of Wales and the Marquis of Salisbury,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: saw mister Balfour, so handsome and gracious that I refused
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: to believe there had ever been caused to call him
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: Bloody Balfour. There was something kingly about him, yet he
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: was simply mister Balfour. Years afterwards I realized that to
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: know mister Balfour is either to worship him or hate him.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: No one takes the middle course. I had begun to
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: have a beautiful time that afternoon. I felt happy, acutely
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: conscious of my blessings, and of one coming blessing in particular.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: Mister Gladstone joined us, and Sir Henry Irving came over
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: to speak to Eve. She told him I had just
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: said that England had a Mold for handsome men. Irving
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: was interesting and striking, though certainly not handsome, But he
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: took the compliment to himself, smiled, bowed his thanks, and said,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: and America for beautiful women. Mister Gladstone too could indulge
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: in small talk. You should have seen her rosy cheeks
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: before she went to the continent, he said, and added
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: kindly that I looked very tired and should go down
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: to Warden Castle and rest. Oh, I explained, happily. It
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: isn't that I'm not tired. It's such a happy reason
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: I felt. Eve gasp. Mister Gladstone opened his kind eyes
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: very wide, and his heavy chin settled down in his collar.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: It was the last bad break I made, but it
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: was a blessing to me, for it robbed all social
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: form of terror. For the first time I realized that
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: custom is merely a matter of geography. One takes off
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: one's shoes to enter the presence of the ruler of Persia.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: One wears a black tie until eleven o'clock in Vienna,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: or doesn't. One uses fish knives in England until he
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: dines with royalty. Then one must manage with a fork
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: and a piece of bread. One dresses for dinner always
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: and waits for the hostess to say it is time,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: and speaks only to one's neighbor at the table. In France,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: one guest speaks to any or all of the others.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: All one's friends extend congratulations. If a baby is coming,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: one shares all all his joys with friends. But in
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: England nobody must know, and everybody must be surprised. No
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: one ever speaks of himself. In England they are sensitive
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: about everything personal. But there is an underground and very
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: perfect system by which everything about everybody is known and
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: noised about and discussed with everybody except for the person
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 4: in question. It is a mysterious and elaborate hypocrisy. With
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: the aid of eve, I made a thorough study of
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: the geography of social customs. I learned the ways of Europe,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: of the Orient, and of South America. It is easier
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: to understand the races if one understands the psychology of
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: their customs. I realize that social amenities are too often
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: neglected in America, and our manner is sometimes truthfully called crude.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: But I told myself with pride that our truly cultivated
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: people will not tolerate a social form that is not
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: based on human kindly instincts. It was not until the
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: World War flooded Europe with American boys and girls that
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: I realized the glory of our social standards and the
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: great need to have our own people understand those standards.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: End of chapter three. Recording by Marianna Fus, Boston, Massachusetts,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: June twenty eleven.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Chapter four of The Log Cabin Lady. This is a
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Recording by Sherry Gardner, The Log Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Chapter four Fear is the destroyer of peace. I knew
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: no peace until I learned not to be afraid of conventions.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: The three most wretched years in my life might easily
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: have been avoided by a little training at home or
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: at school. I realized now the unhappiness of those first
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: years of my married life. I was awkward and ill
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: at ease in a world that valued social poise above knowledge.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: From my childhood I had loved honest, sincere people. After
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: my marriage, I met distinguished men and women, even a
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: few who might be called great, but they too had
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: their affectations and petty vanities. Being young, I judged them
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: harshly because they set what I considered too much store
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: upon absurd conventions. In the course of my travels, since
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: I have come to realize that social customs are a
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: simple matter of geography. What is proper in England is
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: bad form in France, and many customs that were correct
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: in Vienna would be in tall tolerable in Spain. In
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: the formal circles of Vienna, no one spoke to anybody
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: without an introduction. In Spain there was a more subtle
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: and truly aristocratic standard. The assumption was that anybody one
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: met in the home of one's host was desirable, and
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: it was courtesy therefore to begin a conversation with any guest.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: This is the attitude also in parts of France. But
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: in those first months I had not acquired my philosophy.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: I lived through homesick days and some that were hard
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: and bitter. I stayed with Tom that first year only
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: because I was too bewildered to take any initiative, and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: because I kept hoping that things would right themselves and
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: I would wake out of my nightmare. My baby came
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: in the second year, and then I could not go home.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: The simple life of my own people slipped very, very
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: far away. We made a hurried trip back to the
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: United States that summer, but Tom would not consent to
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: my going west. His own family wanted to see our baby,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: and they decided that the little fellow had traveled enough
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and should not be subjected to the hardships of a
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: cross country train trip. So Tom sent for Mother and
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: the twins to come to us, and they arrived at
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: the Waldorf Hotel where we were staying. Dear simple Mother
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: in her terrible clothes and the twins got up with
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: more thought for economy than for beauty. I shopped extravagantly
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: with them. The youngsters wanted to see everything in New York.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: But Mother, despite all of those hard, lonely years in
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: our rough country and the many interesting things for her
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: to do and see in New York, Mother wanted nothing
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: better than to stay with the baby. With all the
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: children she had brought into this world, one might think
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: she had seen enough of babies, but she adored my
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: little son. How near she seemed to me then, how
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: hungry I had been for her without realizing it. I
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: felt that she loved my baby boy as she had
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: never loved me or any of her own children, And
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: I understood why Mother never had had time to love
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: her own babies. In the struggle for existence of those
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: hard years, she had never had a minute to indulge
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: in the pure joy of having her baby. I sat
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: watching her with her first grandchild, so sweet in his
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: exquisite hand sewn little clothes, and suddenly I found myself
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: crying hysterically. Mother was very dear to me from that day. Later,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: in this chronicle, I want to give a chapter to
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: my mother and what we both suffered during this period
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: of her visit to New York, for it marked the
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: climax of my own development. When mother and the children
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: started off on their return trip to the West, Tom
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: sent them flowers and candy and fruit. He had already
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: generously put financial worry away from my family for all time,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: but I knew that he was a little ashamed of
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: some of Mother's crudities. I wondered why I did not
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: feel ashamed. I was very very glad I did not.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: It gave me something tangible to cling to, a sure
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: consciousness of power that comes of knowing one possesses the
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: true pride to rise above the opinions of other people.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: I would have given my life that day to be
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: able to assure my family that material security which they
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: owed to my husband, who neither loved nor understood them.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: I looked down the years and saw myself crush by
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: a burden of indebtedness to a man I felt I
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: no longer loved. Only mother's grateful, simple happiness eased my hurt.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: I had never approached my mother, but I knew now
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: that if her natural dignity and great kind heart had
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: been given the advantages that the women and my husband's
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: family took as a matter of course, she would have
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: been superior to them all. Yet they barely tolerated Mother
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: no more. I longed to go home to my own warm, hearty,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: open west. I stood on the ferry after they had gone,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: thinking that if my family were not so deeply indebted
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: to my husband, I would leave him. I suppose I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: did not really mean that thought, but it made me unhappy.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: I felt disloyal and dishonest. Finally I told Tom. There
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: was a scene, But from that day he began to
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: understand me, and things were better. A few days later,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: we came home from a dinner party, and after going
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: to the baby's room for a minute, Tom asked me
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: to stay and talk. But he did not talk for
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: a long time. He sat smoking and thinking. I knew
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: he had something on his mind, and I waited. Finally
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: I realized that he was embarrassed. Can I help? Is
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: it something I have done that has embarrassed you? I asked.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: That was many years ago, but I can never forget
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: the look Tom gave me. It held all the love
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: of our courtship, and something besides that I had never
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: seen in his face before. For God's sakes, never say
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: that to me again, he cried, embarrassed me. I am
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: proud of you. You never can know how proud. I
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: was sitting here trying to think how to tell you
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: something my mother said about you, and just what it
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: means his mother. My heart dropped. His mother had never
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: said anything about me, accepting criticism. I had been a
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: bitter disappointment to her. Whatever she said would be politely
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: cruel at best, a damning with faint praise, she said.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: My husband went on that she is very happy in
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: our marriage, completely satisfied, and that she has come to
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: be proud of you. I don't know how to tell
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: you just what that means. I knew, I knew his
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: mother could have given me no higher praise. I had
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: learned what to her were the essentials I had cultivated,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: the manner she placed above price. But the realization brought
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: self distrust. Had I lost my honesty and sincerity? Tom
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: went on to tell me that his mother had particularly
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: admired my attitude toward my own mother and the manner
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: in which I met every little failing of hers. She
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: felt I had a sense of true values in people,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: and that the simplicity and sureness with which I had
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: met this situation was the essence of good breeding. I
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: had not thought it possible that Tom's mother could understand
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: my feeling for my mother and my honest pride in
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: her real worth. Perhaps I reflected I had been unjust
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: to my mother in law. I knew what a shock
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: I had been to her in the early days of
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: our marriage, and I knew only too well that even
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: Tom had often regretted my ignorance of social usages. They
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: are simple customs and should be taught in every school
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: in America. But I had not learned them. I was
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: happy that night and for days afterward. Then we went
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: back to Europe. Tom knew people on the steamer to
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: whom I took a dislike. They were bold and even vulgar,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: and Tom admitted that he did not admire them. I
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: made up my mind we should avoid them. The next afternoon,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: I found Tom and that group walking the deck arm
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: in arm, chatting affably. When we were alone, I asked
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: Tom how he could do it. I know now that
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: a man cannot hold an official position like Tom's and
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: ignore politically important people. But he only said, rather carelessly
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: and with a laugh, that it was one of the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: prices a man pays for public office. After that, I
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: noticed that my husband was known to nearly every one.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: He had a glad hand and a smile for the public.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: Because it was the public, I watched to see if
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: he had a slightly different smile for the people of
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: back Bay and his own particular social class. Sometimes I
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: thought he had, and it made me a little soul sick.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: I longed for a home for my baby and a
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: few friends I could love and really enjoy. I was
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: not fitted to be the wife of a public man.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: It was the poverty and crudeness of my youth that
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: had made me intolerant. One of the big lessons life
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: has taught me is that people can be amiable, tolerant,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: and even friendly and still be sincere. The pleasantry of
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: social relations among the civilized peoples of the earth is
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: a mere garment we wear for our own protection and
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: to cover our feelings. It is the oil of the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: machinery of life. I have found that men and women
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: who take part in the big work of the earth
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: wear that garment of civility and graciousness, and yet have
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: their strong friendships and even the bitter enmities. But I
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: did not understand this when we went back to Europe.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: I only knew that my husband was amiable to people
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: he did not like, and I questioned how deep his
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: affection for me went, How much of his kindness to
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: me was just the easiest way, in the manner of
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: a gentleman. A hard and bare youth had made me
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: super sensitive and suspicious and narrow. I wanted to measure
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: other people by the standards of my own primitive years
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: out on the frontier. We had judged life in the rough.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: Courage and truth were the essentials a man fought his
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: enemies out in the open and made no compromises. There
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: was nothing easy in life, no smooth rhythm, and I
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: tried to drag forward with me as I went the
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: bold ethics of the frontier. I resented good manners because
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I believed they were a cloak of hypocrisy. A few
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: months after we returned to Europe, the shadow of death
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: crossed our path swiftly and terribly. My little son died.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: Other babies came to us later, but that first little
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: boy had brought more into my life than all the
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: rest of the world could ever give. He had restored
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: my faith in life, my hope, and for a while
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: was all my joy. People were kind, but I felt
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: that many called merely because it was good form, the
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: thing to do. Bitterness was creeping into my heart. Yet
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: why should it not be the thing to do to
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: call on a bereaved mother. It is a gesture of humanity.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: Tom seemed very far away. I felt that his pride
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: was her, perhaps his vanity, for he had boasted of
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: the little fellow and loved to show him off. How
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: little I understood. I bring myself to tell these intimate
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: things because there is a lesson in them for other women,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: because I resent that any free born American citizen should
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: be handicapped by lacking so small and easily acquired a
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: possession as poise, poise that comes with knowledge of the
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: simple rules of the social game. It is my hope
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: that this honest confession of my own feelings due directly
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: to lack of training, may help other women, and particularly
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: other mothers whose children are now in the plastic years.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: It was my utter lack of appreciation of manners and
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: customs in my husband's class that estranged me from Tom.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I was resentful and antagonistic merely because I was different.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: My husband was suffering even as I was suffering, but
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: no one realized it, least of all myself. Every One
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: was especially kind to me because I was a woman.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: People are rarely attentive and tender with men when loss comes.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: Men are supposed to be strong and self controlled. Their
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: hearts are rated as a little less deep and tender
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: than the hearts of women. Yet when men are truly hurt,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: they need love and care, even as little children. A
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: month after the baby's death, Tom and I were walking
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: along the Embankment in London one Saturday, afternoon, when we
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: met a small girl carrying a little child. The baby
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: was too tired to walk any farther, it was dirty,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: and was crying bitterly. Tom stopped, spoke to the girl
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: and offered to carry the baby, who soon quieted down
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: on Tom's shoulder. At the end of that walk, Tom's
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: light summer suit was ruined. I expected him to turn
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: with some trivial jesting remark, but he said nothing. I
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: looked at him and saw that his face was set
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: and hard and his eyes wet. Without looking at me,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: he said, don't speak to me now. That moment of
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: silence revealed to me my husband's character better than months
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: of talking. The next day, my husband came to me
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: and said, Mary, I have asked for a leave of absence.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: We are going back to the United States. We are
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: going out west to have a visit with your family.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: Two years before I had believed that Tom would not
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: fit into my Northwest, But in twenty four hours, Tom
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: and my father were old palls. He was as much
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: at home with mother and the children as I and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: all the neighbors liked him. He was interested in everything
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: on the ranch and even in the small town life
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: of the village. He interested father in putting modern equipment
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: on the ranch. He went hunting with the men, played
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: games with the children, visited the little district schoolhouse, and
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: found joy in buying gifts for the youngsters. When mother
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: made a big platter full of taffy, he pulled as
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: enthusiastically as a boy. As I stood at the corral
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: one day and watched Tom with my youngest brother, I
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: remembered him at the court of Saint James, and I
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: began to understand Tom was natural. It was just a
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: part of him to be kindly and gracious to everybody.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: I had never seen him angry with men of his
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: own type, but I saw him furious enough to commit
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: murder when a man on the ranch tied up a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: dog and beat her for running away. In after years,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: I saw Tom angry with men of his own class.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: I saw him waging long, bitter fights against public men
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: who had betrayed public trust. Something barbaric in me was
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: satisfied that my kind, gently bred man was one with
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: the men of my own tribe, who thought man and
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: beast and the elements to take civilization farther west. Almost
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: a generation slipped by between that visit to the West
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: and the next scene in my life, of which I
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: shall write. Many things of personal and of national importance
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: happened meantime, but they have nothing to do with this
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: message to women. I was in France when the World
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: War began. I had been in Vienna again and in
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: England at regular intervals. I had learned to accept life
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: as I found it, and to get much joy out
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: of living. Sometimes I chafed a little under the demands
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: of social life and needless formalities, but I accepted them
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: as inevitable. Then the world was torn in two. The
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: earth dripped in blood and sorrow. Life became more difficult
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: than on the frontier, and more elemental. I was present
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: in the first year of the war in a house
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: where the King and Queen of the Belgians were guests,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: where great generals and great statesmen had gathered on great
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: and earnest and desperate business. I was only an onlooker,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: and I noticed what every one else was too absorbed
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: to see. As the evening progressed, I realized that pomp
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: and ceremony had died with the youth of France. King, generals,
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: statesmen met as human men, pitting their wits against one another,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: desperately struggling to find a way out of the hell
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: into which they were falling. Twice the king rose to
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: his feet, and no one else stood. They were all
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: too deep in the terrible question of war. When the
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: meeting was over, and the guests of the house ready
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: to retire, the little Queen said, very quietly, madam, may
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: not my husband and I occupy this room together. It
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: is very kind of you to arrange two sweets for us,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: But I am sure there are many guests here to night,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: and anyway I prefer to be near him. The war
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: had done that. Who would expect a queen to think
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: of the problems of housing guests, even a great queen.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: And the war had made the king, not the king,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: but her man, very near and very dear. Many other
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: conventions I saw die by the way. As the war progressed,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: then America came in. There is a teen to talk
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: about America in the war, but after all, that has
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: no bearing on my story. Soon after the United States entered,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: American men and women began to arrive in Europe in
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: great numbers. I met them everywhere, sight seeing, in offices,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: at universities, at embassies and consulates. I met them and
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: loved them and suffered for them. I was proud of
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: something they brought to France that France needed, and I
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: have no doubt that many of them took back to
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: America something from France that we need for pure mental
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: quality and courage. No people on earth could match what
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: the American girls took to France. It was the finest
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: stuff in the world. They knew how to meet hardship
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: without grumbling. They knew how to run a kitchen and
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: see that hungry men were fed. They knew how to nurse,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: to run telephones, automobiles, anything that needed to be done.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: Some failed and fell by the wayside, but they were
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: the smallest possible percentage. Those American girls knew how to
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: do everything, almost everything. Two wonderful girls, one who ran
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: a telephone for the army and another in the y,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: both from the Middle West, were at headquarters the day
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: the King and Queen of the Belgians arrived with others.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: They were sent to serve tea and they served it.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: The why girl taking a young captain whose presence made
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: her eyes glisten to her. Majesty, said Captain Blank, meet
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: the Queen, and the Queen, holding out her hand and
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: never batting an eye, to show that all the conventions
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: had been thrown to the wind, said Captain, I am
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: very happy to meet you. They served tea, served it
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: to the King, the Queen, the General of the American Army,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: and other important people. There was cake besides tea, and
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: it was not easy to drink tea and eat cake standing.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: The telephone girl insisted that General Pershing must sit down.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: The King was standing, and of course General Pershing continued
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: to do the same. Will you sit down, said another
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: girl to the king. There are plenty of chairs. That
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: girl had done her job in France, a job of
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: which many a man might have been proud, and on
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: her left breast she wore a military medal for valor.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: The King touched the medal, smiled at her, and said
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: he was glad there were plenty of chairs, for he
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: knew places where there were not. But General Pershing and
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: his cake still bothered the little Illinois girl, who went
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: back at him again and asked him to sit down
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: and enjoy his cake. The King indicated to the General
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: to be seated. No one but General Pershing would have
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: known what to do between the rule to stand when
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: a king stands and the rule to obey the order
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: of the king. He gracefully placed his plate on the
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: side of a table, half seated himself on it, which
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: was a compromise, and went on enjoying himself the king
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: sat down. If anyone had told that girl the sacredness
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: of the convention she had ignored, she would have suffered
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: as keenly as I had suffered in my youth. It
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: was such a simple thing to learn, Yet two in
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: the middle of a war would think of stopping to
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: run a class in etiquette. The point is that any
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: girl capable of crossing half the world to do a
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: big job and a hard one in a foreign land
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: should have been given the opportunity to learn the rules
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: of social intercourse. I saw some American girls and men
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: on official occasions, at private houses and at official functions.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: They were clever, attractive, fascinating. But when they came to
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: the end of their visit, they rose to go, and
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: then stood talking, talking, talking. They did not know exactly
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: how to get away. They did not want to be abrupt,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: nor appear to be glad to leave. It would have
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: been so simple for someone to say to them, one
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: of the first rules in social life is to get
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: up and go when you are at the end of
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: your visit. I was in Paris when Marshal Jofftra gave
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: the American ambassador, Mister Sharp, the gold oak leaves as
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: a token of France's veneration for America. There were young
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: girls around us who did not hesitate to comment on
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: everybody there. One little New Jersey girl insisted rather audibly
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: that Clemenceau looked like the old watchman on their block,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: and a boy a young officer, complained that General Fouche
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: had not won as many decorations as General Bliss and
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: General Pershing. Some youngsters asked high officers for souvenirs. Many
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: French people perhaps did worse. But it hurt me to
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: see even a few of our own, splendid young people
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: guilty of such crudities, because our American youth is so
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: fine at heart. When the great artist Rodin died, I
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: went to the public ceremony held in his memory. Suddenly
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: I realized that America and France each had something left
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: that war had not destroyed. A young American art student
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: who had given up his career for his uniform and
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: was invalided back in Paris. Minus in arm stood very
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: near me. As he turned to Colonel House. I heard
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: him say, Rodin's going is another battle lost. It was
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: typical of the American quality of which we have caused
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: to boast, the fineness of heart that is in our
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: young people. The day of the Armistice in France, those
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: of us who are older stood looking on and realizing
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: that all class distinctions, all race, age, and pursuits had
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: been wiped off the map. People were just people. There
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: was a complete abandon I am not a young woman,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: but I was caught up by the fury of the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: crowd and swept along, singing, laughing, weeping. Young soldiers passing
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: would reach out to touch my hand, sometimes to kiss me.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: That night, I believed that the war had broken down
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: many of our barriers, that all foolish customs had died,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: that the terrific price paid in human blood and human
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: suffering had at least left a world honest with itself,
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: simple and ready for good comradeship. That men were measured
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: by manliness and women by ideals. It was a part
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: of the Armistice day fervor, But I believed it, and
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: then I came home and went to Newport. End of
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: chapter four. Recording by Sharygardner. Chapter five of The Log
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: Cabin Lady. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Sharygardner, The Log
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography. Chapter five. Just before I
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: came home to America in the spring of nineteen nineteen,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: I went to Essex for a week end, in one
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: of those splendid old estates which are the pride of England.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: It was not my first visit, but I was awed
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: anew by the immensity of the place, its culture and wealth,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: which seemed to have existed always, its aged power and pride.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: Whole lives had been woven into its window curtains and
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: priceless rugs. Centuries of art lived in the great tapestries.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: Successive generations of great artists had painted the ancestors of
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: the present owner. All three sons of that house went
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: into the war, One never returned from Egypt, another is
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: buried in Flanders. Only the youngest returned. At first glance
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: the smooth life seemed unchanged in the proud old house.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: But before sundown of my first day there, I knew
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: that life had put its acid test to the shield
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: and proved it pure gold. War taxes had fallen heavily
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: on the estate, and it was to be least to
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: an American. Until then the castle was a home to
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: less fortunate bodies of the owner's sons. But these were
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: not the tests. I mean, neither these, nor the courage
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: and the poise of that family in the face of
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: their terrible loss, nor their effort to make every one
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: happy and comfortable. It was an incident at tea time
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: that opened my eyes. The youngest son, now the only son,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: came in from a cross country tramp and brought with
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: them a pleasant faced young woman, whom he introduced as
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: one of my pals in the war. That was enough.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: Lady r greeted her as one of the royal blood.
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: The girl was the daughter of a Manchester plumber. She
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: had done her bit, and it had been a hard
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: bit in the war, and now she was stenographer in
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: a nearby village. Later in the afternoon the story came
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: out she had been clerk in the q M Corps,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: and after her brother's death, she asked for service near
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: the front. Something hard she got it. The mules in
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: the supply and ammunition trains must be fed, and it
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: was her job to get hay to a certain division.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: The girl had ten motor trucks to handle and twenty men,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: three of them non commissioned officers. After four days, during
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: which trucks had disappeared and mules gone unfed, she asked
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: the colonel for the rank of first sergeant. With only
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: enlisted men under her, her first official orders were all
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: trucks must stay together. If one breaks down, the others
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: will stop and help. The second day of her new command,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: she met our young host who needed a truck to
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: move supplies and try to commandeer one of hers. When
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: she refused, he ordered her he was a captain. I
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: am under orders to get those ten loads of hay
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: to the mules, was her reply. What will you do
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: if I just take one of them, asked the captain.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: You won't, said the girl, confidently, I must get a truck.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: He insisted, What can you do about it if I
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: take one of yours? England needs men, she answered, But
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: if you made it necessary, I'd have to shoot you.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: If the mules aren't fed, you and other men can't fight.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: If you were fit to be a captain, you'd know that.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: The young captain told the story himself, and his family
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it, evidently it hiring the Manchester lassie, who sat
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: there as red as a poppy. They did not bend
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: to the plumber's daughter, nor seemed to try to lift
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: her to the altars of their ancient hall. Every one
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: met on new ground, a ground where human beings had
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: faced death together. It was sign of a new fellowship,
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: too deep and fine for even a fish knife to sever.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: There was no consciousness of ancient class. There was only
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: to day and tomorrow. It was the America. I love
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: that spirit, the best America, valuing a human being for
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: personal worth. Then I sailed for home. I went to Newport,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: to the Atlantic coast resorts. They were all the same.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: The world had changed, but not my own country. I
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: saw more show of wealth, more extravagance, more carelessness, more
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: reckless morals than ever before, and horrible to contemplate springing
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: up in the new world. The narrow social standards which
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: war had torn from the old social lines tightened men
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: who had been overwhelmingly welcome. While they wore shoulder straps
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: were now rated according to bank accounts or family. The
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: dough boys shaved tail, a hero before the armistice, or
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: the aviator who held the stage until November eleventh, once
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: he put on his search suit and went back to
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: selling insurance or keeping books, became a nodding acquaintance, sometimes
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: not even that I was heartsick. I thought often of
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: those splendid men I had met in France, and of
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: the girls who poured tea for the King of the Belgians.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: I wondered if any one back home was just nodding
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: to them. Everywhere was the blatant show of new wealth.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: New money always glitters. I saw it in cars with
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: aluminum hoods and gold fittings, diamonds big as birds, eggs,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: ermine coats in the daytime, jeweled heels at night. Bad
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: breeding plus new money shouted from every street corner. At
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: private dinners, I ate foods that I knew were served
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: merely because they were expensive, glutton feasts with twice as
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: much as any one could eat with comfort. One day
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: I went to market, the kind of a market to
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: which my mother would have gone and I saw women
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: whose husbands labored hard, scorning to buy any but Porterhouse steaks,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: merely because Porterhouse steaks stood for prosperity. In Washington, I
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: met a new kind of American, a type that has
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: sprung up suddenly, like an evil toadstool. It is a
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: fungus disease that spreads. Some hangs from old American stock,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: some dangles from recent plantings. All of it is snobbish
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: and offensive. It wears foreign clothes and affects foreign ways,
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: sometimes even foreign accents. It chops and mumbles its words
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: like English servants who speak their language badly. Some of
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: this is acquired at fashionable finishing schools or from foreign
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: secretaries and servants. These new Americans try to appear superior
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: and distinctive by scorning all things American. They want English
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: chintzes in their homes, French brocades, and Italian silks, and
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: do not even know that some of these very textiles
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: from America have won prizes in Europe since nineteen twelve.
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: An American manufacturer told me he has to stamp his
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: Creton English style print to sell it in this country.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: This new species of American apes royalty. It goes in
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: for crests. It may have made its money in gum
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: shoes or chewing tobacco, but it hires a genealogist to
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: dig up a shield. Fine if you are entitled to
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: a crest, but fake genealogists will cook up a coat
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: for the price. There are crests on the motor cars,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: crests on the stationery, on the silver, the toilet articles.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: There are sometimes even crests on the servant's buttons, and
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: on linen and underclothes. Fake crests are the first step down,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: and like all lies, they lead to other lies. The
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: next step is ancestors, selling and painting. Ancestors is a
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: another business which thrives around New York, Philadelphia, and Washington,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: and the public swallows it. They swallow each other's ancestors.
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: Even old families take these new descendants as a matter
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: of course. One of these new Americans recently gave a
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: large feast in Washington, with every out of season delicacy
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: in profusion. The only simple thing in the house was
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: the mind of the hostess. That night. It was a
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: tangled skein. I saw she was worried. Her house was
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: full of potentates, the wives of two cabinet officers, and
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: Missus Coolidge. She left the room twice after the dinner
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: hour had arrived, and it was late when dinner was
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: finally announced later in the evening, one of the servants
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: whispered to the hostess that she was wanted on the
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: telephone the State Department. She returned to the drawing room lofle,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: looking as if she had just heard of a death
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: in the family. The guests began considerately to leave. Her
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: expensive party was a dismal failure. As I have known
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: her husband for years. I asked if I could be
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: of any use. It's too late now, he said. She
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: had the Princess Bobesco and the Princess Lubomirska here, and
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: the wife of the vice President, and she didn't know
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: the precedents they took. She held up dinner half an
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: hour trying to get the State Department, and now they
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: tell her she guessed wrong. It's a tragedy to her,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: I confess I did not feel very sorry for that woman.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: I remembered my little Indiana girl who introduced the captain
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: to the Queen of Belgium. I began to feel as
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: if all America were like the de Morgan jingle, great
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: fleas have little fleas on their backs to bite em,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so add infinitum.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: Then I took a trip across the continent, stopping off
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: in Indiana to see my little why friends. It was
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: like a bath for my soul brains. Count out West,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: anybody who tries to show off is snubbed. You must
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: do something to be anything. In the Middle West, just
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: to have something doesn't count. You don't list your ancestors
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: as you must in Virginia or the Carolinas. But to
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: feel self respecting you must do something. I was happy
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: to renew my wartime friendships. Those who have not shared
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: a great work or a greater tragedy will not understand
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: these bonds. The same young friend who served tea to
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: the king took me to a musicale. She wore her
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: war medal. One of the guests, a lady from Virginia
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: who claims for of arms, was impressed by the girl's
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: medal and the fact that she had entertained the king.
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: The girl had married since the war, a fine young
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: Irish lawyer with a family name which once belonged to
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: a king, but which since hard times hit, the old
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: sod has been a butt for song and jest. The
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: name did not impress the lady from Virginia. You have
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: such an interesting face, she said, What was your name
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: before your marriage?
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: It was much less interesting than my husband's, answered my
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: young why friend, And lifting the conversation out of the personal,
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: she asked, have you read mister Keynes's The Economic Consequences
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: of the Piece. I hadn't read it myself, she confided
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: to me later. But it was the first new book
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: I could think of. That is good American manners, and
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: the French call savoi fare. The far West still keeps
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: the American inheritance of open hearted hospitality and its provincialism.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: The West has inherited some of the finest virtues of
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: our country, and if it is not bitten by Back Bay, Philadelphia,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: Virginia or Charleston, it will grow up into its mother's
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: finest child. No church west of Chicago, no God west
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: of Denver, we used to hear when I was a child.
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: But today the churches are part of the community, and
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: even men go. People in the West do not seem
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: to go to church merely out of respect for the
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: devil and a conscience complex, but because they like to.
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: Churches and schools are important places in the West. President
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: Harding has said that he hopes more and more people
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: will learn to want to pray in a closet alone
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: with God. There are many people like that in our
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: Middle West. I say this because I hope it may
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: help other American women who love their country to fight
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: for honesty and purpose in our national life, and for
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: tolerance and respect for the simple things in our private lives.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: End of chapter five recording by Sherry Gardner. End of
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: The Log Cabin Lady, an anonymous autobiography