CHAPTER VI “Bred in the Bone”
Whether due to my reading, or almost wholly to observations and conclusions, I cannot say, but I began early to feel the potency of heredity; to lament certain tendencies in my kindred which I saw cropping out in myself, and to realize the gravity of marrying and having offspring. I saw my grandfather’s ungovernable temper exaggerated in one of his daughters and in my brother; saw in myself, though naturally of a mild disposition, a tendency to give away, on occasion, to intense anger; saw queer traits in aunts and cousins that frightened me; knew that tuberculosis had attacked some members of my father’s family; that certain cousins on both sides were neurotic; that my maternal grandmother had carcinoma; that a cousin was an epileptic; and that on both sides were intemperate uncles—these were the chief reasons contributing to my early, deep-seated resolution never to marry.
As a family, one trait which we have in common is intemperance, though Sister is less so than the rest of us. My father would be surprised to be charged with intemperance, for all his life he has waged war against intemperance (in its restricted sense—the excessive use of strong drink); but he has been intemperate in his zeal for the “Cause of Temperance.” I remember the “Temperance Movement” in our village, in my early childhood. Mother and other women went around to the saloons praying and singing and beseeching the liquor dealers to close out their business. I have heard them tell that when one obdurate man finally yielded (pouring barrels of liquor into the street) there was such rejoicing that staid citizens like my father threw their hats in the air and shouted for joy. This was years before Father left the Republican Party to espouse the cause of Prohibition—perhaps long before there was a Prohibition Party. Of course the reform wave subsided, the liquor dealers bought more whisky, and the curse continued. But although that early warfare died out, Father’s zeal, I might almost say his fanaticism, has ever been unceasingly directed toward efforts to quell the liquor traffic. So it was not surprising that, in time, ardent Republican though he was, he allied himself to the party bent on fighting this evil. It is sad to think of him expending energy on what seems to me a lost cause; but Prohibition is no lost cause for him.[3] Logical and clear-sighted as he is, he seems to me to take a one-sided view in this matter, and to be following a chimera. He says Prohibition will yet prevail, whereas I feel that the prohibition—the inhibition—must be in the individual himself. The long years of character-building determine whether one shall succeed or fail. Legislative measures, I fear, can never be effective for those suffering from ingrained weakness, and dragged down by tyrannical habits. But Father firmly believes that the good time is coming toward which he labours unceasingly.
Father’s excesses in minor matters also show the intemperance to which I refer. I mention them only to show that in certain things I am a “chip of the old block”: Many years ago he had the croquet craze. He and other business men would play that silly game for hours. I recall Mother’s disapproval and Father’s lame defence. She was not opposed to a reasonable amount of playing; it was the intemperate, inopportune indulgence that disturbed her. The same with chess and checkers. He and his chess-loving friends pursued these with a fervour prejudicial to business. Often when I have gone to the lawyer’s office where they were wont to play, or in the back of Father’s store, I would find him so absorbed that my timid request would remain long unnoticed. If some other player would call his attention to me, his preoccupation was such that I verily believe a moment later he did not know I had been there. He contended that he never neglected customers for the pastime, but Mother would tell him that his impatience to get back to his game made him attend grudgingly to them, and that feeling this they would go elsewhere. Of course he disavowed this, but it was true.
I can see the same trait strong in myself. Given to riding my hobbies hard, everything else is relegated to the background. I attend to all else as expeditiously as possible that I may “return to my knitting,” whatever it happens to be, though I do try to conceal my lack of interest in the work at hand. Perhaps I flatter myself that I do, as Father flattered himself; doubtless onlookers see that “my heart’s in the Highlands chasing the deer.” For games I have cared but little, except tennis—that draws me as croquet used to draw my father. My hand itches for the racquet as his itched for the croquet mallet and the chess-men, though it is not the ultimate winning I care so much about as to make good plays, and have an exciting game—I get positively despondent when I make a succession of poor plays, while with a good audience, I can sometimes play a brilliant game. I can seldom remember the score after the game is over.
Many and varied have been the things I have taken up with an ardour that, bred in the bone, persists in coming out in the flesh—tennis, bicycling, amateur theatricals, the study of wild flowers, of the birds, palmistry, handwriting and character, the Romany jib, the spasmodic study of German and French—for the time these are the things for which I live; incidentally I followed my profession. Perhaps I deceive myself in thinking I have more moderation than my father. At least I can see my tendency and attempt some self-discipline. There is this marked difference between us: He makes himself believe what he wants to believe, while the more I want a thing to be so, the more I am afraid of being deceived into thinking it is so. I want to face things as they are always; endure them, yield to them, or forego them, as my will elects, or circumstances decree, but never to cheat myself into thinking that they are so, if such is not the case. If Father and I wanted to do a given thing, and the weather threatened to be unfavourable, Father would be likely to scrutinize the sky, announce that it was not going to rain, and start out hopefully; I should know I couldn’t tell if I did scan the sky, but, with a strong feeling that it probably would rain, would start out, in spite of misgivings, taking the precaution, however, to carry my umbrella.
Mother’s excesses take her into other fields: Always she has been a lover of flowers; garden flowers and houseplants have been her hobbies. How she would pore over the Vick’s catalogues, and stoop for hours over her flowerbeds, and go miles to lug black dirt to enrich the soil! Indifferent to sun, rain, heat, and cold, pulling weeds and caring for her treasures, she would forget her rheumatic tendencies and the pain that would make her groan outright when under a roof. As a young girl it tried me sorely that she would do these things at such unseasonable times, pottering in the yard in her old clothes when I wanted her to look tidy in the afternoon. But what especially disturbed me was that she would leave the dinner table standing to pursue her craze. It was not so much that I objected to doing the dishes after school; if they had been piled away in the kitchen, and the dining room put in order, I believe I should not have said a word—it was that sickening feeling on coming home and seeing the table just as we had risen from it that was one of the real trials of my girlhood. I used to plead with her, but all in vain. My training with Cousin Prudence had made me particular about these things, but I should doubtless have been much the same anyhow. I would urge how much more she would enjoy the afternoon if she would give up a half hour to doing the work. I never could understand her perversity in this, for she knew it distressed us girls, and, in a way, seemed sorry. Many and bitter are the tears I have shed over the dish-pan at five in the afternoon; and how ashamed I was if other girls came home with us and saw the table standing! But, oh, joy! the nights I opened the door and found the table cleared, and the work done! I never failed to mention this delight, either, though I am sorry to say I expressed the opposite feelings when the more accustomed sight met my eyes. I purposely slammed things to make a commotion, so she could no longer enjoy in peace her persistent weed-pulling.
In those days I sometimes went down into the basement and banged an old pie-tin around; this, though, not so much from anger as from a feeling of inward irritation and pent-up energy—a desire to make a racket. One day I made such a dent in a tin that Mother told me I had better keep that one downstairs just for that purpose when the mood came on. So whenever the desperate spell would come over me, I would go down there and kick the old tin about; the cat would jump in terror out of the window, and I’d bang away till the noise, the exercise, and the absurdity of it all exorcised the demon, when I would go upstairs flushed, relieved, and good-naturedly at ease. I suppose I did not have enough play, and this furnished a needed outlet. Mother was wise to indulge me in it—I often wish I had that pie-tin now!
As to Mother’s habit of leaving the dishes, I used to quote to her, “Parents, provoke not your children to wrath,” as I would tell her how other girls’ mothers did. But she would only say, “Don’t touch the dishes, I’ll do them—I only wanted to put in those bulbs,” or “transplant that shrub”—“I only went out for a few minutes”; the same old story—it never appeased me. I wonder now if it was not something she was practically powerless to resist. She was not very well those years; it was probably during a crisis in her woman’s life when she had need of relaxation, and felt difficulty in concentrating on the common round of duties. It was doubtless a salutary thing for her. Not always flowers, in winter it was piece-work, carpet rags, or quilting, pursued to the exclusion of regular tasks, and always from her the lame excuses! It grieves me now to think how impatient and critical Sister and I were because she would not conform to our wishes. Now I believe she could not. Since then I have seen other women pushed on in a similar manner by an imperative need of some absorbing diversion, and have come to regard it as a safety-valve at certain periods in their lives. Mother was not a poor housekeeper in the ordinary sense; she was neat and fastidious and a good cook; her house was sweet and clean from top to bottom—this of which I speak was a surface disorder, due to lack of method and to postponing things, the neglect of which gave a cluttered appearance to kitchen and pantry which sorely tried my methodical soul.
I have heard Mother plead with her mother, in much the same way (only more kindly) that Sister and I would plead with her—concerning Grandma’s queer way of doing her work. For example she would put the scouring-board on the floor to scour her knives. But she could not persuade her to adopt the easier, rational way. We wondered, when Mother would marvel at Grandma’s obstinacy, why she could not see that she, in turn, was equally obstinate.
One of Mother’s sisters was such a strenuous housekeeper that she lost sight of what it means to make a home, so intent was she on having things immaculate, and in maintaining a painful orderliness from cellar to garret. The habit grew on her in later years. I can remember when she used to get up delicious dinners at our family reunions, opening her house with real hospitality; but a few years after her late marriage to a widower with a large family, her peculiarities developed and, taken with a captious disposition and shrewish temper, made her a trying person to deal with. Yet she had a generous nature and could not do enough for one at times. But let some little thing displease her and a tantrum would result; she would twit the one at whom she was enraged of every trifle she ever gave him and would rake up every little and big grievance against him. These tirades would be as likely to occur on the street as elsewhere. We learned not to cross her, even if she made statements that we knew were wrong; for to disagree with her was to see the fur fly. Yet how amiable she was to strangers—to everyone, for that matter, when in her good moods! and she was kind at heart, even to those she would on occasion rake over the coals. Mother could not bear to have us criticize her. “I know—I’m sorry, but it’s her way, you mustn’t stir her up,” she would say. She was a woman of keen intelligence, well educated, public-spirited, and with a distinct gift for composition. She dressed much younger than her years, with a marked individuality in dress. In later years she seemed obsessed with a love of fine clothes, which she kept in a wardrobe full to overflowing, wearing her plainer ones as a rule.
Another queer aunt, perhaps in the late thirties, also married a widower—such a timid, docile creature that we children wondered how he ever got up spunk enough to propose to Aunt Ann. Though having marked peculiarities, she had a keen, quick mind and a phenomenal memory. She was very obstinate.
It was years before we children learned of the skeleton in her house. We knew that when visiting her, Mother took along sheets, towels, etc., but supposed it was to save work for Aunt Ann—the excuse usually offered. Later we learned that, spic and span as was her house in general appearance, and neat as she was about her cooking, she had an unheard-of peculiarity in that she never did any washing nor had any done. This queerness must have grown on her in middle life. At the time I learned of it, her washtubs had fallen down, and her flatirons were covered with rust. Shrewd as she was in concealing this singularity, a close observer could discern abundant evidence of it. We learned that Mother had laboured with her all to no purpose. So Sister and I decided to make Aunt Ann a visit and see what we could do to effect a change. Talking about it at first with our uncle, we told him our intention. He said it would do no good, and that it would not be safe for him if she knew he had discussed it with us. He startled us by saying that she had a violent temper, and had often berated him so loudly that the neighbours heard her; that she had even used profane language and threatened his life—she, a regular church-goer and apparently an exemplary woman!
“She can’t help it, she’s crazy,” the husband said. This seemed so incredible that we almost thought him the crazy one; still, there were these incomprehensible things which we knew were true, and the others might be so, too.
As Aunt Ann took pride in us and our pretty clothes, we conceived the plan of appealing to this pride to bring her to terms, an invitation to a neighbourhood party hastening our preliminary attack. That afternoon she had said, “Girls, you will wear your velveteen dresses to-night?” We would, we agreed, if she would let us do her washing the next day. Bridling up, she said she guessed she could do her own washing when she needed to. This gave us the opening. Beginning guardedly, not letting her know that we knew the extent of her negligence, we said we knew she was not strong, and we wanted to help her. But as she persisted in saying that nothing needed to be done, we were obliged to instance this, and that, that were so obvious; and finally laid all pretense aside. Yet, when confronted with the facts, she stoutly maintained that everything was as it should be. Then we told her how ashamed we were; how Grandma and Mother grieved over these queer ways; and how it was the talk of the neighbourhood. We said we did not care to go to any parties there, or to church, or anywhere, when one of our own flesh and blood was such a disgrace to us. Then we threatened to leave her, never to come there again, unless from that day she would do differently.
It was a tragic afternoon—that middle-aged woman convicted of these unheard-of things, and berated by her nieces whose family pride was stung, yet whose affection for her persisted in spite of it all. We were baffled and bewildered by her conduct in the first place, and her inaccessibility to reason in the next. She attempted no defence; would not meet our arguments; would declare things that were so were not so, till repeatedly confronted with them; then would stand there, sad-eyed, like a creature at bay, sometimes darkly hinting, “You don’t know, you can’t understand.”
“What is it we can’t understand? Tell us, let us try,” we urged. Convinced that there was a dread mystery somewhere, we tried in vain to fathom it. Was there some terrible thing concerning the poor-spirited uncle about which we did not know? But all the time we would come back to the thought that nothing, nothing excused this strange conduct. We cried, we pleaded, we threatened, we entreated; she would not promise to mend her ways or even admit that they needed mending; yet with a strange insistence showed as much persistence in urging us to go to that party and wear our velveteen gowns as we showed in urging her to begin a radical reform in this matter of household management, concerning which there could be no two rational opinions.
In the heat of argument, and knowing her strong interest in church affairs, I said, “Why, Aunt Ann, how can you do as you do? You know the Bible says that ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’” Her eye lighted in triumph, and quick as a flash she retorted, “That isn’t in the Bible, you can’t find it in the Bible.” For a minute I was chagrined, and she harped on it unmercifully; but I finally told her it ought to be in the Bible, if it wasn’t; after which I railed against the kind of Christianity that would let one teach a class in Sunday school while leading such an unclean daily life. Sister and I alternated between righteous indignation and crying for shame. Aunt Ann seemed to harbour no resentment toward us but remained unmoved. I am convinced now that there was some delusional development back of those strange ways; yet those who knew her then, and who have known her since, who see her only as she appears when out among folk, would say one must be crazy to suggest that she is not in her right mind.
All this gave me an ominous feeling as to my inheritance. It also served to make both Sister and me extremely fastidious in matters of personal neatness. We made a kind of god of cleanliness from that dreadful afternoon when we realized that one of our own kin had developed these strange ways. I resolved that whatever else heredity developed in me, I would steer clear of that particular line of offense.
We made good our threats and soon left our Aunt’s to visit a cousin in the same village. While there I was invited by a young man to drive out one Sunday evening—my nearest experience to having a beau. I was pleased but embarrassed. I was probably then seventeen. Rallied by my cousins before I went, I was laughed at unmercifully on return, early in the evening, because I had not invited the young man in to call, as he evidently expected I would. During the drive, when I had mentioned my plans for further study on leaving school, he had questioned the wisdom of them, saying a woman should choose no career that would interfere with her home life, as that assuredly would, if followed. “But I am not going to marry,” I promptly announced, and then how he “squelched” me!
“Don’t ever be heard saying that again. When a young girl says that, it is either because she is so ignorant of life that she doesn’t know what she is talking about, or else she says it for effect and to be contradicted.” I think he added that he did not believe I meant to be insincere; but I felt his rebuke keenly. My cheeks flamed at the suggestion that I might be saying this for effect. I suppose I did think it was “smart” to be different from the other girls, though beneath this was a settled purpose. His advice stung me, but taught me a lesson. Since then I have been guarded in expressing my intention in this respect, but my attitude has never changed.
As a family all five of us have alike a strong love for children. The others have the natural outlet for it which I have never had, and early knew I should never have. I was perhaps sixteen when I discovered how strong this feeling was in myself. A friend of Mother’s was visiting us with her two-year-old child. We girls were planning to go out that evening for a frolic, but just before starting I had taken that baby in my arms, and the delicious feeling I had as he nestled up to me acted like a charm. In spite of the coaxing of the girls I stayed at home. Left alone in the house, I had a precious hour holding that baby and singing him to sleep. After all the years, that evening stands out as a blessed experience, but even then I believe I was more sad than glad. Possibly I am mistaken, but I think I felt convinced then that no child of mine would ever nestle in my arms. I remember my voice broke as I sang to him. The experience was too sacred to repeat. I have never mentioned it before.
Not long after my sister’s first child came (several years later than the foregoing incident) I dreamed of being back home, and that a neighbour boy, running through our yard, in reply to some remark which, on waking, I could not remember, called out derisively, “Genie’s baby! you mean Kate’s—who ever heard of Genie’s baby!” (Dream analysts would find in this a good example of wish-fulfilment.) That dream marked an epoch in my woman’s life. I realized then and there, how acutely only a childless woman can know, that I should never be a mother. Till then I had given the subject but little thought. Occupied with my work, and having known from girlhood that I should not marry, yet the knowledge of this other thing came to me like a stab—never a baby of my own! And then I knew that, fill my life with whatever work and interest I might, nothing could compensate for missing this supreme joy.
The positive notions I held as to heredity, the traits and diseases in my kindred which I took so seriously, the disagreeable and morbid tendencies I noted in myself, had, as I have intimated, all combined to make me feel it would be wrong for me to marry. I used to argue with myself: “A man that I could esteem and love would be so far above me that he could never stoop to love me; if he did, he would not be the hero I thought him; and if I were to marry, and bring into the world children like myself, it would be a calamity indeed.” No, I would stop the perpetuation of beings like myself. It was a blind kind of altruism that actuated me, and not till I had the dream just mentioned did the personal side of the question occur to me; and then I learned how, as an individual, I should suffer in abiding by the stand I had taken. A lover at this time would probably have swept away all my fine theories and resolutions; but I had none, and serious work and interests were filling my days. But how illogical I was! It seemed never to occur to me that the same conditions that debarred me from marriage should debar my sister also; I was even anxious for her to marry, while so firmly convinced that it would be wrong for me. I evidently thought that all the seeds of disease and crankiness were in me alone and that I must let them die out.
Now I know, too, that I exaggerated greatly the unfortunate family inheritance. My studies in this field, in subsequent years—inquiries into the family histories of many hundreds of persons—have shown me that my inheritance averages up well with that of most families. My own little knowledge in girlhood was a dangerous thing. Hypersensitive, and introspective to a degree, I took my own adolescent impressionability too seriously, losing sight of the fact that good as well as bad traits and tendencies are inherited; and that training, environment, and self-culture may do wonders to counteract undesirable proclivities. I assuredly locked the barn door before the horse was stolen and threw away the key. Though perhaps, in a way, so far as my sister was concerned, I was right, for she is of a more harmonious nature, more normal and typical, than I am. As to my brother, however, had I spent my life trying to bring about a deplorable hereditary combination, I could hardly have succeeded better than when, by the merest chance, and by my own act, I unwittingly enlisted Propinquity, which lost no time in bringing about his marriage with a neurotic girl who has since become the mother of his children. And yet four beautiful little beings (who seem to be unusually well endowed physically and mentally) gladden the lives of all of us, and as I reflect how much of the good and true there is in their inheritance, I am hopeful that, with such training and fortuitous environment as can be compassed, much can be done to counteract undesirable tendencies. But my soul sometimes contemplates all this—my early theories, and the actual conditions—with a grim smile: that it was I who brought it all about, I, the prudent one, the far-seeing, the stickler for observing the inexorable laws of heredity!