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Democracy
in print
Democracy
in print
the best of
The Progressive Magazine, 1909–2009

Edited by
Matthew Rothschild

the university of wisconsin press

 The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor
Madison, Wisconsin 53711–2059

www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/

3 Henrietta Street
London wc2e 8lu, England

Copyright © 2009 by The Progressive Magazine

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without
written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief
quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Democracy in print : the best of the Progressive magazine, 1909–2009 / edited by
Matthew Rothschild.
p. cm.
isbn 978-0-299-23224-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-299-23223-8 (e-book)
1. Progressivism (United States politics) 2. United States—Politics and
government—20th century. 3. United States—Politics and government—2001–
I. Rothschild, Matthew. II. Progressive (Madison, Wis.)
III. La Follette’s weekly magazine. IV. La Follette’s magazine.
jk271.d435 2009
320.51´30973—dc22
2008046312
 To the memories of
Robert M. La Follette Sr., Belle Case La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette Jr., Philip La Follette, William T. Evjue,
Morris H. Rubin, Mary Sheridan Rubin, and Erwin Knoll—
all who edited The Progressive over the past 100 years.
And to progressives everywhere!
The real cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.
—robert m. la follette
 contents

Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction: A History of The Progressive Magazine 3
Matthew Rothschild

Part 1 Championing Civil Liberties

Free Speech and the Right of Congress to Declare the Objects of the War 9
Robert M. La Follette, November 1917
Theodore Dreiser Denounces Campaign Against Communists 12
Theodore Dreiser, September 1931
What Are We Afraid Of ? 13
Robert M. Hutchins, December 1950
Freedom’s Most E¤ective Weapon 14
Morris Rubin, April 1954
The Manifest Destiny of America 15
Justice William O. Douglas, February 1955
The Last Best Hope 16
Justice Hugo L. Black, August 1961
On Secrecy 17
Daniel Schorr, July 1976
When Nice People Burn Books 18
Nat Hentoff, February 1983
Lesbian Writer Fights Feminist Censors 20
Holly Metz, August 1989
Your Urine, Please 22
Barbara Ehrenreich, March 2000
That Country Wouldn’t Be America 24
Senator Russ Feingold, December 2001

The New McCarthyism 25

Matthew Rothschild, January 2002

Treated Like a Criminal: How the INS Stole Three Days of My Life 27
Behrooz Arshadi, as told to Mark Engler, March 2003

Our Job Is Not to Stand Up and Cheer When the President Breaks the Law 29
Senator Russ Feingold, April 2006

Part 2 Combating Corporate Power

Punish the Real O¤enders 33
Robert M. La Follette, May 27, 1911

Borah Tells How Our Wealth Is Divided 34

Senator William E. Borah, May 2, 1931

The Progressive Platform 34

January 5, 1935

Lawless Big Business Must Be Controlled to Save Democracy 35

Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, January 8, 1938

The ProWt in Highway Slaughter 37

Ralph Nader, May 1966
Valley of the Shadow of Death 38
Jane Slaughter, March 1985

Tobacco Roads: Delivering Death to the Third World 40

Morton Mintz, May 1991

They Killed My Son 43

Ron Hayes, December 1995

Free Market Fraud 45

John Kenneth Galbraith, January 1999

Wake Me When We’re Equal 47

Molly Ivins, April 2001

Part 3 Renouncing Empire

Why War? 51
Robert M. La Follette, March 18, 1911

The Armed Ship Bill Meant War 53

Robert M. La Follette, March 1917
Defense or Imperialism? 54
Robert M. La Follette, February 1921

Armed Intervention in Nicaragua 54

Robert M. La Follette Jr., January 1927

We Have Got to Lick Churchill Too 56

Milton Mayer, November 23, 1942

Vietnam Whitewash: The Congressional Jury That Convicted Itself 58

Thomas R. Harkin, October 1970

How It All Began 61

David Halberstam, April 1973

Behind the Death Squads 63

Allan Nairn, May 1984

The Secret Behind the Sanctions 65

Thomas J. Nagy, September 2001

The Algebra of InWnite Justice 67

Arundhati Roy, December 2001

Heckled in Rockford 70
Chris Hedges, July 2003

The Scourge of Nationalism 72

Howard Zinn, June 2005

The Curse of Columbus 74

Eduardo Galeano, October 2007

Part 4 Campaigning for Women’s Equality

My Baby Girl 79
Carl Sandburg, February 10, 1912

If Things Were Reversed 80

Jane Addams, as recorded by Belle Case La Follette, April 6, 1912

May the Women of the United States Vote in 1920? 81

Belle Case La Follette, February 1920

Women’s Wages in Government 82

Mary Anderson, Women’s Bureau of the Labor Department, as recorded
by Belle Case La Follette, December 1926

Women and the Law: Unjust Discrimination 84

Susan Brandeis, February 9, 1930
The “Patriotic” Prostitute 85
Jill Gay, February 1985
Memoirs of a Normal Childhood 87
Bonnie Urfer, October 1986
Awesome Women in Sports 88
Ruth Conniff, May 1993
What Shall I Wear? 90
Elizabeth Karlin, October 1994
An Interview with Katha Pollitt, Columnist for The Nation 92
Ruth Conniff, December 1994
An Interview with Gloria Steinem 95
L. A. Winokur, June 1995
Dulcet Tones 96
Molly Ivins, October 1995
An Interview with Ani DiFranco, Folksinger 96
Matthew Rothschild, May 2000

Part 5 Linking Arms with the Civil Rights Movement

The Color Line 101
Belle Case La Follette, August 23, 1913
Twin Evils of the Literacy Test: Privilege and Race Discrimination Threaten
the High Standard of This Country 102
Louis D. Brandeis, April 1915
Murdering Negroes 104
Robert M. La Follette, August 1919
Lynching Punishes the Community 104
Anna Howard Shaw, November 1919
The Plunder Harvest in Indian A¤airs 105
Senator Burton K. Wheeler, September 1929
Sato: A Letter to a Japanese American 107
Ernest L. Meyer, January 17, 1942
Revolt Against Jim Crow 109
A. Philip Randolph, May 1948
Intruder in the Dust 110
Murray Kempton, November 1955
The Burning Truth in the South 114
Martin Luther King Jr., May 1960
“I Will Keep My Soul” 116
James Farmer, November 1961

A Letter to My Nephew 119

James Baldwin, December 1962

“Arab”: Did You Flinch? 121

Pat Aufderheide, August 1984

The New Bigotry 123

Mike Ervin, December 1984

The Underclass Myth 124

Adolph L. Reed Jr., August 1991

My Father’s Party 126

Luis J. Rodríguez, April 2008

Part 6 Joining the Cause of Gay Liberation

I’m Proud to Be a Sissie 131
Richard Gollance, May 1973

An Interview with Randy Shilts, Author of And the Band Played On 133
Laurie Udesky, May 1991

One Good Mother to Another 135

Minnie Bruce Pratt, November 1993

An Interview with Larry Kramer, Playwright and Founder of ACT UP 138

L. A. Winokur, June 1994

An Interview with Urvashi Vaid, Author, Executive Director, and Foundation

Leader in the Lesbian and Gay Rights Movement 139
Anne-Marie Cusac, March 1996

An Interview with Harry Hay, Founder of the Mattachine Society, the

First Modern Gay-Rights Group 140
Anne-Marie Cusac, September 1998

I Do Weddings 143
Kate Clinton, July 2004

Part 7 Defending the Environment

Teddy Roosevelt’s Greatest Work 147
Robert M. La Follette, March 13, 1909

Have You Ever Seen This Bird? 147

C. F. Hodge, April 8, 1911
The National Pollution Scandal 148
Senator Gaylord A. Nelson, February 1967

Earth Day: A Beginning 149

Denis Hayes, April 1970

Fake Food Is the Future 151

Jim Hightower, September 1975

The Clamshell Alliance: Getting It Together 153

Harvey Wasserman, September 1977
Earth First! 155
Dave Foreman, October 1981

An Interview with Wendell Berry, Writer, Farmer, Environmentalist 158

Carol Polsgrove and Scott Sanders, May 1990

An Interview with Winona LaDuke, Native American Environmentalist,

Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate with Ralph Nader 160
Sonya Paul and Robert Perkinson, October 1995

Arctic Heat Wave 162

Bruce E. Johansen, October 2001

An Interview with Terry Tempest Williams, Writer, Environmentalist 164

David Kupfer, February 2005
An Interview with Wangari Maathai, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 166
Amitabh Pal, May 2005

Part 8 Reforming Criminal Justice

To the Hangmen’s Managers and Sympathizers 171
Leo Tolstoy, December 3, 1910

Capital Punishment 172

Belle Case La Follette, August 31, 1912

Death Punishment Does Not Deter Crime 173

Senator John J. Blaine, August 1927

Requiem for the Champ 174

June Jordan, April 1992
An Interview with Sister Helen Prejean, Criminal Justice Activist and
Author of Dead Man Walking 177
Judy Pennington, January 1996

Abu Ghraib, USA 180

Anne-Marie Cusac, July 2004
Part 9 Freeing the Media
People Demand a Free Press 185
Robert M. La Follette, November 1920
“Freedom of the Press” Bares Suppressed Facts Concerning Journalism 186
George Seldes, March 21, 1936
The Media Monopolies 187
Ben H. Bagdikian, June 1978
The Bounds of Thinkable Thought 189
Noam Chomsky, October 1985
Body-Bag Journalism 192
Susan Douglas, April 1997
Oligopoly: The Big Media Game Has Fewer and Fewer Players 193
Robert W. McChesney, November 1999
An Interview with Helen Thomas, White House Correspondent 196
Elizabeth DiNovella, August 2004
An Interview with Amy Goodman, Founder and Host of Democracy Now! 197
Elizabeth DiNovella, February 2008

Part 10 Standing Up for Labor

The Strike of the Shirtwaist Girls 203
Elizabeth Dutcher, April 23, 1910
Why Wisconsin Gave a Record-Breaking Vote to La Follette 204
Louis D. Brandeis, April 13, 1912
The Eight-Hour Day Will Come 205
Robert M. La Follette, July 19, 1913
Anti-Trust Law and Labor: An Appeal to Congress and the Public 206
Samuel Gompers, President, American Federation of Labor, April 11, 1914
The War of Organized Capital Against the People 206
Robert M. La Follette, December 1920
Human Wreckage: A Plea for Federal Relief 208
William Green, President, American Federation of Labor, February 20, 1932
A Letter to Henry Ford 209
Upton Sinclair, January 15, 1938
The Work Ethic: It Works Best for Those Who Work Least 210
John Kenneth Galbraith, June 1981
An Interview with Dolores Huerta, Cofounder, United Farm Workers 211
Susan Samuels Drake, September 2000
Part 11 Parading Poetry
Solidarity 215
June Jordan, June 1989
Sleeping on the Bus 216
Martín Espada, November 1995
To the Poet Whose Lover Has Died of AIDS 217
Kenny Fries, March 1996
Sonnet on the Location of Hell 218
Jack Agüeros, April 1996
Storm 218
C. K. Williams, September 1996
Poem for an Election Year: The Politics of Bindweed 220
Maxine Kumin, November 1996
Black on a Saturday Night 220
Rita Dove, June 1998
The Communist Party 221
Philip Levine, November 1998
La Niña Obediente / The Obedient Girl 223
Marjorie Agosín, June 1999
Veterans Day 225
Adrienne Rich, November 2000
The Avenue of the Americas 229
Alicia Ostriker, February 2001
Not Spoken 230
Tim Seibles, March 2002
Rue Beaurepaire, I and II 231
Marilyn Hacker, July 2002
My Name’s Not Rodríguez 233
Luis J. Rodríguez, August 2002
Balance 234
Mario Susko, April 2003
Book Burning 235
Jay Rogoff, January 2004
Patriotic Poem 238
Rafael Campo, December 2004
sizing up the cost of war 239
devorah major, February 2006
On the Third Anniversary of the Ongoing War in Iraq 241
Sam Hamill, August 2006
The House Murdered 242
Mahmoud Darwish, November 2006
No Moon 243
Spoon Jackson, December 2006
Prayer for the New Millennium 244
Sandra Cisneros, July 2007

Part 12 Waging Peace

Take the ProWt Out of War 249
Robert M. La Follette, February 1915
The Right of the Citizen to Oppose War and the Right of Congress to
Shape the War Policy 250
Robert M. La Follette, June 1917
Gandhi Opposes Bloodshed 251
September 19, 1931
Who Is It That Wants War? 251
Bertrand Russell, September 24, 1932
We Can Have Peace, If We Want It 253
Norman Thomas, July 9, 1945
Anniversary 253
Elaine Holstein, May 1988
Not a Just War, Just a War 255
Erwin Knoll, June 1991
Dying for the Government 258
Howard Zinn, June 2003
An Interview with Cindy Sheehan, “The Peace Mom” 260
David Barsamian, March 2006

Part 13 Opposing Nuclear Weapons

Plunderers in Paradise 265
Ernest L. Meyer, August 20, 1945
The Doomsday Strategy 266
Sidney Lens, February 1976
Radiation: Unsafe at Any Level 267
Dr. Helen Caldicott, December 1978
Born Secret: The Story Behind the H-Bomb Article We’re Not Allowed
to Print 268
Erwin Knoll, May 1979
The H-Bomb Secret: To Know How Is to Ask Why 272
Howard Morland, November 1979
Why We Seized the Hammer 275
Philip Berrigan, May 1981
An Interview with Sam Day, Peace Activist 276
Matthew Rothschild, March 2001

Part 14 Weaving a Safety Net

The Reaction of Moral Instruction upon Social Reform 281
Jane Addams, May 1, 1909
How Shall We Pay for Industrial Accidents? 282
Robert M. La Follette, July 17, 1909
Why We Need an Income Tax 283
Senator William E. Borah, July 17, 1909
The Need for Health Insurance 284
Irving Fisher, January 1917
Wagner Urges Unemployment Relief Action 285
Senator Robert Wagner, June 14, 1930
The Long Plan for Recovery 286
Senator Huey P. Long, April 1, 1933
The Taxing Power Is Only E¤ective Way to Redistribute Wealth and
Break Down Vast Fortunes 287
William T. Evjue, June 29, 1935
Look at America 289
Governor Philip La Follette, April 30, 1938
A New Economic Bill of Rights 290
Harry Magdoff, November 1990
Cutting the Lifeline: The Real Welfare Fraud 291
Ruth Conniff, February 1992
To Your Health 292
Michael Feldman, November 1994
Another Country 293
Edwidge Danticat, November 2005
President Bush, Meet Lorraine 296
Barbara Ehrenreich, April 2006

Part 15 Upholding Human Rights

Human Rights Higher Than Property Rights 301
President Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1910
Still Those Who Prize Freedom 301
Heywood Broun, January 8, 1938
Against Isolationism 302
William T. Evjue, September 30, 1939
Let Me In on the Kill 303
Milton Mayer, October 14, 1946
On Justice for the Palestinians 305
I. F. Stone, January 1975
A Palestinian Versailles 306
Edward W. Said, December 1993
An Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 308
Leslie Kean and Dennis Bernstein, March 1997
An Interview with Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 309
Zia Jaffrey, February 1998
Where We Went Wrong: A Palestinian’s Soul Search 311
Hanan Ashrawi, February 2002
An Interview with Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 312
Amitabh Pal, September 2004
An Interview with the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 314
Amitabh Pal, January 2006

Part 16 Democratizing Democracy

Restrict Use of Money in Campaigns 319
Senator A. W. Sanborn, March 20, 1909
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall 319
Robert M. La Follette, December 10, 1910
Election of National Delegates and the Nomination of President by
Direct Vote 320
Robert M. La Follette, January 7, 1911
The Great Issue 320
Robert M. La Follette, February 17, 1912
Elect President by Direct Vote 322
Senator George W. Norris, January 1922
The Power and Duty of the Senate: Expenditure of Huge Sums for Seats in
Congress Cannot Be JustiWed; “Pay As You Enter” Policy Denounced 323
Senator George W. Norris, January 1927
What Democracy Means 324
Upton Sinclair, March 25, 1939
The Erosion of Liberty 324
Neil Sheehan, July 1972
Wall Street’s Mascots 326
Molly Ivins, September 2002

Part 17 Providing a Platform for Writers,

Musicians, and Performers
An Interview with Pete Seeger, Folksinger 329
Mike Ervin, April 1986
An Interview with Frank Zappa, Musician 330
Batya Friedman and Steve Lyons, November 1986
An Interview with Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Poet 331
Katrina vanden Heuvel, April 1987
An Interview with Alice Walker, Novelist 332
Claudia Dreifus, August 1989
An Interview with Susan Sarandon, Actress 334
Claudia Dreifus, October 1989
An Interview with Allen Ginsberg, Poet 335
Matthew Rothschild, August 1994
An Interview with Patti Smith, Musician 338
John Nichols, December 1997
An Interview with Harold Pinter, Playwright 340
Anne-Marie Cusac, March 2001
An Interview with George Carlin, Comedian 342
Marc Cooper, July 2001
An Interview with Janeane Garofalo, Actress 343
Elizabeth DiNovella, May 2003
An Interview with Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist 345
David Barsamian, June 2003
Crack Kills, Pot Giggles 347
Will Durst, August 2003
An Interview with Tom Morello, Musician 348
Elizabeth DiNovella, January 2004
An Interview with Chuck D, Hip-Hop Artist 350
Antonino D’Ambrosio, August 2005

Part 18 Envisioning a Better World

The Basis of the Struggle 355
Robert M. La Follette, July 31, 1909
Toward a Manifest New Destiny 356
June Jordan, February 1992
A Flash of the Possible 358
Howard Zinn, J anuary 2000
History Is a Dance of Life 360
Senator Paul Wellstone, December 2002
Our Story 361
Bill Moyers, May 2004
 acknowledgments

This was a group e¤ort if ever there was one. Thanks to Elizabeth DiNovella for doing
a lot of the heavy lifting, not only in reading decades of the magazine’s output but
also in narrowing the selections. To Ruth Conni¤ and Amitabh Pal for tackling a cou-
ple of decades each and for reading over the entire manuscript and making thought-
ful comments, and thanks to Amit also for hunting down reprint rights. Thanks to
Nick Jehlen for designing the cover. Thanks to Dennis Best, Ben Lembrich, Ina Lukas,
and Phuong Luu for retrieving old texts and making them usable in the computer age.
Thanks to Diana Cook for copyediting this book, and for proofreading The Progressive
for more than thirty-Wve years. Thanks to Jodi Vander Molen for proofreading this
book. Thanks to Furaha Norton and Sarah Fau for their Wne editing suggestions early
on. And enormous thanks to Sheila Leary at the University of Wisconsin Press, for
riding to the rescue at a delicate moment, and to Gwen Walker and Sheila Moermond
for their excellent editorial advice, and to Andrea Christo¤erson, for her marketing
e¤orts. Thanks also to Gail Leondar-Wright for her professional assistance in getting
the word out.
Dennis Best, Andrea Potter, and Jodi Vander Molen of The Progressive helped raise
crucial revenue for this book project and for our centennial celebration. Research for
this book was made possible, in part, by the Argosy Foundation, the Brico Fund, the
Buck Foundation, the Compton Foundation, Betty and Corkey Custer, Daniel Erdman,
the Evjue Foundation, John and Mary Frantz, the Fund for Investigative Journalism,
David and Betsy Gi¤ord, Evelyn Haas, Victor and Lorraine Honig, Matt Johnson, the
Kelly Family Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin, Pam and Don Lichty, Art and Sue
Lloyd, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Michael Mann, Je¤rey
Mayersohn, Richard Mazess, the Menemsha Fund, the Mosaic Foundation of R. and
P. Heydon, Jack and Lucia Murtaugh, Christopher Oeschsli, the Purple Moon Foun-
dation, Robert Redford, Lucy Rosenberg, Margaret Rosenberry, the Samuel Rubin
Foundation, Natalie Sue Schmitt, Carol Sundberg, Phillip Willkie, and thousands of
steadfast supporters of The Progressive.

xxi
xxii Acknowledgments

Final thanks to the permanent outside board members of The Progressive, Inc.—
Gina Carter, Dayna Cunningham, James Friedman, and Barb Kneer—who give gen-
erously of their time and their wisdom in exchange for six free lunches a year.


We’re grateful to all the authors and copyright owners who gave us permission to re-
produce their work in this anthology. Some of them requested speciWc citations, which
follow.

James Baldwin, “A Letter to My Nephew,” copyright © 1962 by James Baldwin. First

published in The Progressive, December 1962. Copyright renewed. Collected in The
Fire Next Time, published by Vintage Books. Reprinted by arrangement with the James
Baldwin Estate.

Noam Chomsky, “The Bounds of Thinkable Thought,” copyright © 1985 by Noam

Chomsky. Used by permission of the author.

Sandra Cisneros, “Prayer for the New Millennium,” copyright © 2007 by Sandra
Cisneros. First published in The Progressive, July 2007. Reprinted by permission of
Susan Bergholz Literary Services, New York, NY, and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved.

Eduardo Galeano, “The Curse of Columbus,” copyright © 2007. First published in

The Progressive, October 2007. Reprinted by permission of Susan Bergholz Literary
Services, New York, NY, and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved.

Marilyn Hacker, “Rue Beaurepaire, I and II,” copyright © 2002 by Marilyn Hacker.
Collected in Desesperanto: Poems, 1999–2002 by Marilyn Hacker. Used by permission
of the author and W. W. Norton & Company.

June Jordan’s essays and poem are reprinted by permission of the June Jordan Liter-
ary Estate, www.junejordan.com.

Maxine Kumin, “Poem for an Election Year: The Politics of Bindweed,” copyright ©
2001 by Maxine Kumin. Collected in The Long Marriage by Maxine Kumin. Used by
permission of the author and W. W. Norton & Company.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay, “The Burning Truth in the South,” was reprinted by
arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers
House as agent for the proprietor, New York, NY.

Adrienne Rich, “Veterans Day,” copyright © 2002, 2001 by Adrienne Rich. Collected
in The Fact of a Doorframe: Selected Poems, 1950–2001 by Adrienne Rich. Used by per-
mission of the author and W. W. Norton & Company.
 Acknowledgments xxiii

Luis J. Rodríguez, “My Father’s Party,” copyright © 2008 by Luis J. Rodríguez. First
published in The Progressive, April 2008. Reprinted by permission of Susan Bergholz
Literary Services, New York, NY, and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved.

Luis J. Rodríguez, “My Name’s Not Rodríguez,” copyright © 2002 by Luis J. Rodrí-
guez. First published in The Progressive, August 2002. Reprinted by permission of
Susan Bergholz Literary Services, New York, NY, and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved.

Arundhati Roy, “The Algebra of InWnite Justice,” copyright © 2001 by Arundhati Roy.
First published in The Progressive, December 2001. Collected in Power Politics, 2nd ed.
(South End Press, 2001). Used by permission of the author.

Bertrand Russell’s “Who Is It That Wants War?” is reprinted by permission of the

Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Ltd.

Edward W. Said, “A Palestinian Versailles,” copyright © 1993 by Edward W. Said.

Reprinted with permission of the Wylie Agency LLC.

Carl Sandburg’s “My Baby Girl” is reprinted by permission of the Carl Sandburg
Family Trust, Philip G. Carson and Maurice C. Greenbaum, Trustees.

George Seldes, “‘Freedom of the Press’ Bares Suppressed Facts Concerning Jour-
nalism,” copyright © 1936 by George Seldes. Reprinted by permission of Russell &
Volkening as agents for the author.
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great matter. And as for the “thettlement,” the wisest man in England could
not have arranged it more securely than John had done.
And so Mary and the curate were married in the late autumn, when the
leaves were covering all the country roads, and the November fogs were
coming on.
 CHAPTER IX.

“HAPPY EVER AFTER.”

T HE Asquiths, though they were so poor, got on very pleasantly at first.

Mary had forty-five pounds a year from her thousand, and thought
herself a millionaire; and Uncle Hugh gave the curate twenty pounds
more in lieu of the lodgings, which were not adapted for a married man.
With this twenty pounds they got a very pretty cottage—a little house which
Mr. Prescott said was good enough for anybody; where, indeed, the widow
of the last rector had lived till her death; and which had a pleasant garden,
and was far above the pretensions of people possessing an income which
even with these additions only came to a hundred and sixty-five pounds a
year. The house was furnished for them, almost entirely by their kind friends
—a very large contribution coming from the Hall, where there were many
rooms that were never used, and even in the lumber-room many articles that
were good to fill up. In this way the new married pair acquired some things
that were very good and charming, and some things that were much the
reverse. They got some Chippendale chairs, and an old cabinet which was in
point of taste enough to make the fortune of any house; but they also got a
number of things manufactured in the first half of the present century, of
which the least said the better. They did not themselves much mind, and
probably, being uninstructed, preferred the style of George IV. to that of
Queen Anne.
And thus they lived very happily for two or three years. They lived very
happy ever after, might indeed have been said of them, as if they had made
love and married in a fairy tale. No words could have described their
condition better. Mary, delivered from the small talk of the Horton drawing-
room, and living in constant companionship with a man of education, whose
tastes were more cultivated and developed than those of the race of squires,
which was all she had hitherto known, brightened in intelligence as well as
in happiness, and with the quick receptivity of her age grew into, without
labour, that atmosphere of culture and understanding which is the fine fleur
of education. She did not actually know much more, perhaps, than she had
known in her former condition; but she began to understand all kinds of
allusions, and to know what people meant when they quoted the poets, or
referred to those great characters in fiction who are the most living people
under the sun. She no longer required to have things explained to her of this
kind. And as for the curate, it was astonishing how he brightened and
softened, and became reconciled to the facts of existence; and found beauty
and sweetness in those common paths which he had been disposed to look
upon with hasty contempt. No two people in the world, perhaps, can live so
much together, share everything so entirely, become one another, so to
speak, in so complete a way as a country clergyman and his wife. Except the
writing of his sermons, there was no part of his work into which Mr.
Asquith’s young wife did not enter; and even the sermons, which were all
read to her before they were preached, were the better for Mary; for the
curate was quick to note when her attention failed, when her eyelids
drooped, as they did sometimes, over her eyes. She was far too loyal, and too
much an enthusiast, you may be sure, ever to allow in words that those
prelections were less than perfect; but Mr. Asquith was clever enough to see
that sometimes her attention flagged. Once or twice, before the first year was
out, Mary nodded while she listened—a delinquency which she denied
almost furiously, with the wrath of a dove; and which was easily explained
by the fact that she was at that moment “not very strong:” but which
nevertheless Mr. Asquith, as he laughed and kissed her and said, “That was
too much for you, Mary,” took to heart. “Too much for me!” she cried; “if
you mean far finer and higher than anything I could reach by myself, of
course you are quite right, Henry; but only in that sense,” the tears coming
into her eyes in the indignation of her protest. The curate did not insist, nor
try to prove to her that she had indeed dozed, which some men would have
done. He was too delicate and tender for any such brutal ways of proving
himself in the right; but, all the same, he laid that involuntary criticism to
heart, to the great advantage of his preaching. Thus they did each other
mutual good.
And what a beautiful life these two lived! I know a little pair in a little
town, with not much more money than the Asquiths, and connections much
less important, and surroundings much less pretty—a pair who have only a
little house in a street, with unlovely houses of the poor about them, instead
of comely cottages, who do very much the same, all honour to them! The
Asquiths flung themselves upon that parish, and took the charge of it with a
rush, out of the calm elderly hands which had for years managed it so easily.
I do not undertake to say that they did no harm, or that they were always
wise; nobody is that I have ever come in contact with: but if there is any
finer thing in the world than to maintain a brave struggle with all that is evil
on account of others, on account of the poor, who so often cannot help
themselves, I don’t know what it is. These two laid siege to all the
strongholds of ill in the village—and evil, or the Evil One if you please to
put it so, has many such strongholds—with all the energies of their being.
They fought against wickedness, against disorder, against disease, against
waste, and dirt, and drink; against the coarse habits and unlovely speech of
the little rural place. They made a chivalrous attempt to turn all those rustics
into ladies and gentlemen—into what is better, Christian men and women,
into good and pure and thoughtful persons, considering not only their latter
end, as the parson had always bidden them to do, but also their present living
and all their habits and ways. The curate had been working very steadily, in
this sense, since he came to Horton; but when he had, so to speak, Mary’s
young enthusiasm, her feminine practicalness, yet scorn of the practical and
contempt of all the limits of possibility, poured into him, stimulating his own
strength, the result was tremendous. The parish for a moment was taken by
surprise, and in its astonishment was ready to consent to anything the young
innovators desired. It would sin no more, neither be untidy any more; it
would abandon the public-house and wash its babies’ faces three times in the
day; it would put something in the savings-bank every Saturday of its life,
and open all its windows every morning, and pursue every smell to the
death. All this and more it undertook in the consternation caused by that
sudden onslaught: and for a little time, with those two active young people in
constant circulation among the cottages, giving nobody any peace, scolding,
praising, persuading, contrasting, encouraging, helping too in that
incomprehensible way in which the poor do help the poor, a great effect was
produced. As for going to church, that was the first and easiest point; and
here Mary came in with her music, which the curate did not understand,
influencing the choice of the hymns, and getting up choir practices, and
heaven knows how many other seductions—artful temptations to the young
to do well instead of doing ill—sweetnesses and pleasures to make delightful
the narrow way.
“You think you are doing an immense deal,” said Uncle Hugh, “but you’ll
find it won’t last.”
“Why shouldn’t it last?” cried Mary. “They are so much happier in
themselves. Don’t you think a man must feel what a difference it makes
when he comes home sober, and finds a nice supper waiting him on Saturday
nights; and then to go out to church with all the children, neat and clean,
round him, instead of lounging, dirty, at the door with his pipe?”
“Perhaps it is more comfortable,” said the rector, shaking his head. “I
should think so, certainly; but it isn’t human nature, my dear. You will find
that he will rather have his fling at the public-house, though he feels
wretched next morning. He likes to see his children nice; but better still he
likes his own pleasure. You’ll find it won’t last.”
“We must be prepared for a few downfalls,” said the curate. “I tell Mary
that we must not expect everything to go on velvet. Some of them will fall
away; but with patience, and sticking to it, and never giving in——”
“Never giving in!” cried Mary. “Why, uncle, you don’t suppose I am so
silly as to think we could build Rome in a day. We quite look for failures
now and then,” she said, with her bright face. “We should almost be
disappointed if we had no failures; shouldn’t we, Henry? for then it wouldn’t
look real; but with patience and time everything can be done.”
The rector only shook his head. He did not say, as he might have done,
that it was very presumptuous of these young people to think they could do
more in a few months than he had done in his long incumbency. The rector’s
wife was very strong on this point, and quite angry with Mary and the curate
for their ridiculous hopes; but Mr. Prescott himself felt, perhaps, that his
reign had been an indolent one, and that he had not done all he might. But he
shook his head; for, after all, though he had been indolent, he knew human
nature better than they did. He was not angry with them; but he had seen
such crusades before, and had various sad experiences as to the dying out of
enthusiasm, and the failure of hope. And the rector, who was a kind man in
his heart, knew through the ladies of the family that the time was
approaching when Mary would be “not very strong,” and apt to flag in other
matters besides that of listening to her husband’s sermon. And he knew, also,
that the conditions of life would change for them; that the young wife would
find work of her own to do, which could not be put aside for the parish; and
that “patience and time,” on which they calculated, were just what they
would not have to give: for when babies began to come, and all their
expenses were increased, how were they to go on with one hundred and
sixty-five pounds a year? The rector said to himself that he would not
discourage them, that they should do what they would as long as they could.
But he foresaw that the time would come when Mr. Asquith would be
compelled to seek another curacy with a little more money, and when Mary,
instead of being the good angel of the parish, would have to be nurse and
superior servant-of-all-work at home.
“Poor things!” he said to his wife. “It is sad when you have to
acknowledge that you are no longer equal to the task you have set for
yourself.”
“I don’t call them poor things,” said Mrs. Prescott. “I think them very
presuming, Hugh, after you have spent so many years here, to think they can
bring in new principles and make a reformation in a single day.”
“We might have done more, my dear. We have taken things very quietly;
most likely we could have done more.”
“You are as bad as they are, with your humility!” cried the rector’s wife.
“I have no patience with you. What have you left undone that you ought to
have done? I am sure you’ve always been at their beck and call, rising up out
of your warm bed to go and visit them in the middle of the night, when you
have been sent for—more like a country practitioner than a beneficed
clergyman! And though I say it that perhaps shouldn’t say it, never one has
been sent away, as you know, that came in want to our pantry door. And as
for lyings-in, and those sort of things——” cried the country lady.
“We needn’t go into details. As for your part of it, my dear, I know that’s
always been well done,” said the politic rector. “Anyhow, don’t let us say
anything to discourage the Asquiths. It’s always a good thing to stir a parish
up.”
“It’s like those revivalists,” said Mrs. Prescott—“a great fuss, and then
everything falling back worse than before.”
“Oh no! not worse than before: somebody is always the better for it. I like
a good stirring up.”
All this was very noble of the rector, who, if ever he had stirred up the
parish, had ceased to do it long ago. Perhaps he was a little moved by the
fervent conviction of the curate and the curate’s wife that in their little day,
and with the small means at their command, they could do so much; at all
events, he let them have their way and try their best. And a great deal of
work was done, with an effect by which they were greatly delighted and
elated in the first year.
But then came the time when Mary was “not very strong,” and the choir
practices and various other things had to be given up—not entirely given up,
for the schoolmaster and his daughter made an attempt to keep them on,
which was more trying to the nerves and patience of the invalid than if they
had ceased altogether. For jealousies arose, and the different parties thought
themselves entitled to carry their grievances to Mrs. Asquith, even when she
was very unfit for any disturbance; and everything was very heavy on the
curate’s shoulders during that period of inaction which was compulsory on
Mary’s part. They had undertaken so much, that when one was withdrawn
the other could not but break down with overwork. However, there was
presently a re-beginning; and Mary, smiling and happier than ever, prettier
than ever, and full of a warmer enthusiasm still, came again to the charge.
She understood the poor women, the poor mothers, so much better now, she
declared. Even the curate himself was not such an instructor as that little
three-weeks-old baby, which did nothing but sleep, and feed, and grow. That
was a teacher fresh from heaven; it threw light on so many things, on the
very structure of the world, and how it hung together, and the love of God,
and the ways of men. Mary thought she had never before so fully understood
the prayer which is addressed to Our Father: she had not known all it meant
before: and the curate, indescribably softened, touched, melted out of all
perception of the hardness, feeling more than ever the sweetness of life,
received this ineffable lesson too.
And so the crusade against the powers of evil was taken up again, with all
the new life of this little heavenly messenger to stimulate them; but not quite
so much of the more vulgar strength, the physical power, the detachedness
and freedom. Mary had to be at home with the baby so often and so long.
And the curate had so strong a bond drawing him in the same direction, to
make sure that all was going well. But still the parish did not suffer in those
young and happy years.
 CHAPTER X.

THE LIGHT OF COMMON DAY.

E VEN in the quietest lives the first few years of married life are apt to
bring changes: the ideal dies off, with its fairy colours; the realities of
ordinary existence come with a leap upon the surprised young people, to
whom everything has been enveloped in the glory and the brightness of a
dream. That plunge into the matter-of-fact is often more trying to the
husband—who rarely sees the bride of his visions drop into the occupations
of the housewife and the mother without a certain pang—than to the young
woman herself, who in the pride and delight of maternity finds a still higher
promotion, and to whom the commonest cares, the most material offices,
which she would have shrunk from a little while before, become half divine.
But when the house is very poor to begin with, and there is no margin left
for enlargements, this inevitable change is more deeply felt. By the time the
third child arrived, the Asquiths had changed their ideas about many things.
Mary’s help in the parish was now very fitful. She still accomplished what
was a great deal “for her:” but there had been no conditions or limits to her
labours in those early days, when she had worked like a second curate,
bearing her full share of everything. These were the days in which so many
things had been undertaken, more than any merely mortal curate could keep
up; and in the meantime there had been a great many disappointments in the
parish. Even before Mary’s powers failed, the influence of the new impulse
was over. The people had got accustomed to all the many things that were
being done for them: they were no longer taken by surprise. The ancient vis
inertia—that desire to be let alone which is so strong in the English
character—came uppermost once more. “Oh, here’s this botherin’ practice
again!” the boys and girls began to say; or, “It’s club night, but I ain’t a-
going. Them as gets the good of the money can come and fetch it!”—for the
village people by this time had got it well into their heads that the custody of
their pennies and sixpences was in some occult way to the curate’s
advantage. And so in one way after another, ground was lost. Mr. Asquith
got fagged and worn out in his efforts to do more than one man could do,
without the help which had borne him up so triumphantly at first; he was
deeply discouraged by the defection of so many; and he felt to the bottom of
his soul the triumph in the eyes of Mrs. Prescott, at the rectory, who had
always said nothing would come of it. The rector, for his part, would not
show any triumph. He had behaved very well throughout; he had not
resented the curate’s attempts to improve upon all his own ways, and do
more than ever had been done before in Horton. And now when the fervour
of these first reformations began to fail, he did not say, “I told you so,” as so
many would have done. He was very moderate, very temperate, rather
consoling than aggravating the disappointment. “Human nature is always the
same,” he said. “Even when you get it stirred up for a time, it reclaims its
right to do wrong—and yet all good work tells in the long run,” Mr. Prescott
said, which was very good-natured of him, and was indeed straining a point;
for he was by no means so sure that in the long run these Quixotic exertions
did tell. But Mrs. Prescott was not so forbearing. “You might have known
from the beginning this was how it would be,” she said to Mary. “You young
people think you are the only people who have ever attempted anything; but
it isn’t so—it’s quite the contrary. We have all tried what we could do, and
we’ve all been disappointed. I could have told you so from the first, if you
had shown any inclination to be guided by me!”
“Oh, Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, “it all went on beautifully at first. It is my
fault, that have not kept up as I ought to have done. If I hadn’t been such a
poor creature, everything would have gone well.”
“There is something in that,” said Mrs. Prescott, who had never had any
babies. “It is always a sad thing when a young woman has so many children
——”
“Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, almost with a scream. She gathered the little
new baby to her bosom, and over its downy little head glared at her childless
aunt. “As if they were not the most precious things in life—as if they were
not God’s best gift! as if we could do without any one of them!”
“Perhaps not, my dear, now they are here,” said Mrs. Prescott; “but you
may let your friends say that it would have been much better for you if they
had not come so fast.”
To this Mary could not make any reply, though her indignation was
scarcely diminished. She was, indeed, very indignant on this point. All of
these ladies—her aunt at the Hall and the girls, as well as her aunt at the
rectory—spoke and looked as if Mary was no better than a victim, helplessly
overwhelmed with children; whereas she was a proud and happy mother,
thinking none of them fit to be compared with her in her glory. That they
should venture to pity her, and say poor Mary! she, who was in full
possession of all that is most excellent in life, was almost more than the
curate’s wife could bear. Her two little boys and her little girl were her
jewels as they were those of the Roman woman whom Mary had heard of,
but whom she would have thought it too high-flown to quote. She felt, all the
same, very much like that classical matron. Anna and Sophie were very
proud of their diamond pins, which even for diamonds were poor things; and
they had the impertinence to pity her and her three children! Mary fumed all
the time they paid her their visits, which had the air of being visits of
condolence rather than of congratulation; and in her weakness cried with
vexation and indignation after they had left. The curate came in before those
angry tears were dried, and her agitated feelings burst forth. “They come to
me and pity me,” she cried, “till I don’t know how to endure them! Oh,
Harry, I wish we were not so near my relations! Strangers daren’t be so nasty
to you as your relations!” Mary sobbed, with the long-pent-up feeling, which
in that moment of feebleness she could not restrain.
“My dearest, never mind them,” he said soothingly. And then, after a
pause, with some hesitation,—“Mary, this gives me courage to say what I
never liked to say before. Don’t you find, even with your own little income,
dear, which I was so anxious should not be touched, and with all the
advantages here, that it is very difficult to make both ends meet?”
“Oh, Harry! I have been trying to keep it from you. I didn’t want to
burden you with that too. Difficult! it is impossible! I must give Betsy
warning. I have been making up my mind to it. After all, it is only pride, you
know, for she is very little good. I have had most of the work to do myself
all the time. I must give her warning as soon as I am well—or rather, we
must try to find her a place, which is the best way.”
“What?” cried the curate. “Betsy, the only creature you have to do
anything for you! No, no. I cannot allow that.”
“The housekeeping is my share,” said Mary, with a smile; “now that I can
do so little in the parish, I may at least be of use at home. And if you only
knew how little good she is! She can’t even amuse little Hetty, and Jack
won’t go to her!” These frightful details Mary gave with the temerity they
deserved. “I’ll tell you what I am going to do. There are the Woods, who
have always been so nice, so regular at school, and attentive about the club. I
mean to have Rosie, the eldest, to come in for an hour or two in the morning
to look after the children while I get things tidy; and then Mrs. Wood herself
will come on Saturdays and give everything a good clean up: and you will
see we shall get on beautifully,” Mary said, smiling upon him with her dewy
eyes, which were still wet. But the irritation had all died away, and in the
pallor of her recent pangs, and the sacredness of her motherhood, no queen
of a poet’s imagination could have looked more sweet.
“Oh, Mary, my darling!” cried the poor curate in his love and
compunction. “To think I should have brought you to this!”
“To what?” said Mary radiant, “to the greatest happiness in life, to do
everything for one’s own? Oh! Harry, I am afraid I have not the self-
devotion a clergyman’s wife ought to have. I was happy to work in the
parish—but, dear, if you won’t despise me very much—I think I am happier
to work for the children and you.”
What could the poor man do? He kissed her and went away humiliated,
yet happy. That he should have to consent to be served by her in the
homeliest practical ways—she, who was his love and his lady—had
something excruciating in it; and to think that his love should have brought
her to this, and that he should have foreseen it, and yet done it in the
weakness of his soul! But when he went back to that, the curate could not be
sorry either that he had loved Mary, or that he had told her his love, or
married her. She was not sorry—God bless her!—but radiant and happy as
the day, and more sweet, and more sacred, and more beautiful than she had
been even in her girlhood. What could he say? He would not even disturb
that exquisite moment by telling her of the change that he was beginning to
contemplate. Things could wait at least for a few days.
 But when she told him that she had given Betsy warning, the curate did
speak. “I have done it,” she said, partly by way of excuse for bringing in the
tea herself, which she did, panting a little, but smiling over the tray. “We
shall be so much better off with Mrs. Wood coming in one day in the week.
Then we shall really have the satisfaction of knowing that everything is
clean for once, and no little spy in the house to report to everybody what we
have for dinner; but we must try and get her another place, Harry; for though
the children don’t like her, and I should never recommend her for a nursery,
there are some things that she can do.”
“Some things you have taught her to do,” Mr. Asquith said.
“So much the more credit to me,” said Mary, laughing, “for she is not
very easy to teach.”
It was evening, and the children were in bed and all quiet. The little
creature last born lay all covered up in the sitting-room beside them, in a
cradle, which the ladies at the Hall, notwithstanding their indignation at his
appearance, had trimmed with muslin and lace and made very ornamental:
and Mary was glad to put herself in the rocking-chair which her cousin John
had given her, and lie back a little and rest. “One never knows,” she said,
“how pleasant it is to rock, till one knows what work is. But, Harry, you are
over-tired, you don’t care for your tea.”
“I care a great deal more for seeing you tired,” he said. “Mary, I want to
speak to you about something very serious. Would it break your heart, my
dearest, if we were to go away from Horton? That is the question I didn’t
venture to ask the other day.”
“Break my heart! when the children are well, and you? What a question
to ask! Nothing could break my heart,” cried Mary, with a delightful laugh,
“so long as all is right with you.”
And then he told her that another curacy had been offered him, a curacy
in a large town. It would be very different from Horton. He would be under
the orders of a very well-known clergyman, a great organiser, a man who
was very absolute in his parish, instead of being free to do almost anything
he pleased, as under Uncle Hugh’s mild sway. And he would have a great
deal of work, but within bounds and limits, so that he would know what was
expected from him, without having the general responsibility of everything.
And though he would be under the rector, yet he would be over several
younger curates, and in his way a sort of vice-bishop too. “But you must
remember,” he said, “that we shall have to live in a street without any
garden, with very little fresh air. It will be quite town, not even like a suburb
—nothing but stone walls all round you.”
Mary’s countenance fell. “Oh, Harry! that will not be good for the
children.”
“I believe there is a park in which the children can walk,” he said, upon
which Mary brightened once more.
“In that case, I don’t mind the other things,” she said, rocking softly in
her chair; “but, Harry, how shall you like to be dictated to, and told
everything that you have to do?”
“I should like anything,” he said, “that gave you a little more comfort, my
poor Mary. There is two hundred and fifty a year——”
He said it with solemnity, as was right—“Two hundred and fifty a year.”
Few are the curates who rejoice in such an income. Mary brought her chair
down upon the floor with a sound which but lightly emphasised her
astonishment and awe. These feelings were so strong in her mind that they
had to be expressed before pleasure came.
“And you really have this offered to you, Harry? offered, without looking
for it?”
“Yes,” said the curate, with the hush and wonder of humility, feeling that
he could not account for such a piece of good fortune.
“That shows,” cried she, “how much you are appreciated, how you are
understood. Oh, Harry! the world is wonderfully kind and right-feeling, after
all.”
“Yes,” he said, “sometimes; there are a great many kind people in the
world. And you don’t mind it, my darling? you don’t mind leaving Horton
and all your relations, and the neighbourhood you have lived in all your
life?”
“Mind it!” she cried, and paused a little, and dried her eyes, which were
full. “Harry,” she said, with a little solemnity, “I think when people marry
and have a family of their own, it is always a little like the beginning of a
new world; don’t you think so? Everything is changed. It seems natural to go
to a new place, to make a real new start, more natural than to stay where one
has always been. Then, when they grow up, there will be openings for the
boys; and Hetty will be able to get a good education. Mind it! I am sure it is
the right thing.”
 “I am very glad, dear. I feared you might have doubts about leaving the
parish.”
“After all,” said Mary, “we have done everything we could for the parish;
and perhaps a little novelty would be good for them now. Uncle Hugh will
be very particular in choosing a very good man to succeed you. And we have
done everything we could; perhaps a new curate who is a novelty may be
better for the parish too.”
 CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST CHANGE.

T HERE was a good deal of difficulty made among the relations about this
removal. The ladies particularly were very decided on the subject. Who
would look after Mary? who would see that she did not do too much, that
she took proper nourishment, that she had from time to time a new gown, if
she went away? “She will never think of these things for herself,” said Mrs.
Prescott at the Hall to Mrs. Prescott at the Rectory. “She will give everything
to the children. She will think of him and them, and never of herself.”
“But I don’t see what we can do,” said the clergyman’s wife. “We cannot
keep them here against their will. It is a far better income than Hugh can
afford to give. And with children coming so fast, they will soon have to think
of education and all that. I don’t like it any more than you do,” added the
clerical lady, “but what can we do?”
They, however, all felt that Mary’s satisfaction in the change was
ungrateful and almost unnatural.
 “You will never know the advantages you have had till you go away,” her
aunt said to her. “You have always had some one to refer to, some one to
take you out a little and make you forget your cares. But among strangers it
will be different. You don’t know how different it will be.”
Perhaps Mary was a little ungrateful. She did not estimate at their due
value the dinners at the Hall to which she and the curate had often gone quite
unwillingly, though the givers of these entertainments thought it was a great
thing for the young couple to have somebody who was always ready to ask
them. Young couples are apt to be ungrateful in this way, to think little of the
home invitations, and to prefer their own company to that of their relatives;
and Mary had not been better than others in this respect. She and Mr.
Asquith had said to each other that it was a bore when they went to the Hall
to dine. They had said to each other that their evenings at home were much
more delightful. Though Mary at this period would not have believed it
possible, yet there were moments in later years when they would have found
it very agreeable to return to those old dinners at the Hall: but of that she was
at present quite unaware. She was, indeed, it must be allowed, a little too
exultant and happy about her move. To think that this advancement had been
offered to the curate, such an important post, so much superior to anything
that could have been hoped for at this early stage, elated her beyond
measure. And the increased income was a great thing. Giving up at once, and
with great ease, the idea of training young servants to such perfection that
people should come far and near to compete for a maid who had been with
Mrs. Asquith, which was her first ideal, Mary rejoiced in the prospect of
getting a real servant, a woman who knew her work, “a thorough good maid-
of-all-work,” she said with importance, as if she had been speaking of a
groom of the chambers. “Oh, the relief it will be just to tell her what has to
be done, without having to show her everything!” Mrs. Asquith said.
“But you used to think it would be so much better to train one to your
own ways,” the curate replied, not being used to so rapid a change of
principle.
“Ah, I have learned something myself since then,” said Mary. And so she
had—the first lesson in life, which has so many and such hard lessons,
especially for those who study in the school of poverty. Poor Mary thought
her troubles were over now. She even formed dreams of having a little
nursemaid to wheel out the perambulator, Two hundred and fifty eked out by
that forty-five of her own! Why, it was a princely income; and privation and
discomfort, she fully believed, were now to be things of the past.
There was some difficulty in getting the furniture transported to the new
place, for some of it was very heavy and large, having come direct, as has
been said, from the lumber rooms and unused part of the Hall. The curate
proposed with diffidence that these lordly articles should be sold, and others
more suitable bought, to save the expense of carriage; but Mary was shocked
by the suggestion. “They are all presents,” she said; “we couldn’t, oh, we
couldn’t, Harry, without hurting their feelings. It would look as if we thought
those things not good enough for us that were good enough for them.”
“But they were not good enough for them, or they would not have been
given to us,” said the curate, a speech which he repented immediately, for
Mary would not have such a reproach thrown upon her relations; and her
husband ate his words and explained that it was because the great mahogany
sideboard, etc., were too good for a curate’s little house that he wished to
dispose of them, which mended matters. And even now everybody was very
kind. Uncle Hugh insisted on adding twenty pounds to the last quarter’s
income for travelling expenses, which, considering that his curate was
deserting him, was liberal indeed; and the Squire was not behind in
liberality. There was perhaps a little of the feeling on the part of the richer
relations that they were thus washing their hands of Mary, setting her up
once for all, so that she never could have any excuse for saying that her
mother’s brothers had not done their duty by her. Neither of these kind men,
who were really fond of her in their way, would have said this even to
themselves. But it must be remembered that she had chosen for herself, and
contrary to their advice, and that she had been fully warned of the poverty
which was likely to be her lot, and that they could not always stand between
her and its penalties. But if this was their feeling, they were at least very
kind and liberal in this final setting out, which also was her own doing or her
husband’s doing, and no way suggested by any desire of theirs to get rid of
her. And her aunt and the girls urged upon her the necessity of writing, and
keeping them fully informed of all that happened. “Write every week,” said
Mrs. Prescott at the Hall; “if you don’t make a habit of it, you will fall out of
it altogether. Now, Mary, remember, once a week.”
“Don’t let us hear of the new babies only through the newspapers,” said
Mrs. Prescott at the Rectory.
 “Oh, Aunt John, of course I shall write every week, or oftener. Oh, Aunt
Hugh, how could you suppose such a thing? and perhaps there will be no
more babies,” Mary said.
She was a little tearful as she bade them all good-bye, remembering then,
with a touch of compunction, how kind they had always been; but all the
same she was radiant, setting out upon life for the first time, setting out fairly
upon the new world, upon her own career, without any of the old traditions.
Heretofore, though she had attained the dignity of marriage and maternity,
Mary had not felt the greater splendour of independence. Now she was going
out with no head but her husband, and no beaten paths in which she must
tread. They were going to trace their own way through the world, their own
way and that of their children, the way of a new family, a new house, a new
nation and tribe, distinct among the other tribes, not linked on, a subsidiary
sept to the tribe of the Prescotts. Perhaps there was a little ingratitude in this,
too, as there is in every erection of a new standard; but they did not see it
from that point of view. She was radiant in the glory of her separate
beginning, glad to throw off the thraldom of natural subjection, just as they
were perhaps glad to wash their hands of her and her concerns. Neither
expressed the feeling, or would have acknowledged it; but it was a natural
feeling enough on both sides.
John was the last of the Prescotts to bid his cousin good-bye. He came in
at a very inappropriate moment, when all the things were packed, and the
children were having their hats and hoods tied on, and making a great noise
in inarticulate baby excitement, delighted with the commotion. He strolled in
at this moment probably because it was the worst he could have chosen, and
stood looking at the emptied and desolate cottage, and the family all in their
travelling dresses, waiting for the carriage which was coming from the Hall
to take them to the station. “I’ve come to thay good-bye,” said John, looking
all about him, as if with a desire to see whether they were carrying any of the
fixtures away.
“Oh, John, how kind of you,” said Mary, “though we are in such a
confusion: there is not a chair to ask you to sit down in.”
“I don’t want to thit down,” said John. And he stood for a little longer
gazing round him until Mr. Asquith had gone out to look for the carriage,
which was late—or at least, so they thought in their anxiety, to be in good
time for the train. This appeared to be what John wanted, for he said more
quickly than usual, “I don’t want to thit down; I want to thay thomething
before you go away.”
“What is it, Cousin John? Oh, I am in such a confusion——”
“Yes, you are in a great confuthion,” said John solemnly; and then he
added after another pause, “if you should ever want anything down there,”
pointing with his thumb vaguely over his shoulder, “write to me.”
“Oh, thank you, Cousin John; but we sha’n’t want anything, I hope. Oh,
there’s the carriage,” Mary cried; “I hear it at last.”
John stood by gravely shaking his head, his mouth a little open, his
moustache drooping. “Thingth are always wanted,” he said solemnly. “Write
to me.”
Mary recounted this little incident to her husband after they had
established themselves comfortably in the railway carriage, and had waved
their hands for the last time to the people assembled to bid them good-bye,
and were dashing along over the country, a family detached and set afloat in
the world, a new race setting forth to conquer the earth. A sort of atmosphere
of excitement, of elation, of novelty, and enthusiasm was about them, so that
they were a little sorry for the homelier people going about quietly, looking
out of the windows of calm country houses, standing at cottage doors, all in
their ordinary way. To be so far out of their ordinary way, in such a rush and
whirl of unaccustomed sensation, seemed to them a superiority—an
elevation such as the dwellers in every-day life might well be envious of.
Mary told her husband about John, and they both laughed, in their
superiority of happiness, at the awkward good fellow who had thought it
right to make this overture, which it was so little likely they would ever take
advantage of. Mary herself laughed, she could not help it: but she said
“Don’t laugh at him, Harry; it was a kind thought, a little out of place,
perhaps, but we must not judge him by ordinary rules. He may be silly, but
he is so kind. Don’t! It hurts me when you laugh at John;” but she laughed
herself just a little, softly, under her breath.
“I am not laughing at him,” said the curate; “he is by far the best of the
lot, and worth a dozen of that Percy you all make such a fuss about; but I
don’t think you’ll write to him to ask his help—at least, I hope not.”
“Harry!” she said with indignation, as if the mere idea of wanting help at
all, she his wife, and he the senior curate of St. John’s, Radcliffe, was a
suggestion so ridiculous as almost to be an offence. And in this spirit they
pursued their happy journey across England to the other side of the kingdom,
with, not their flocks and herds, like the patriarchs, but what comes to the
same thing, their furniture and their boxes and their children, to settle down
in the well-watered plain, in the land flowing with milk and honey, in which
their career and their surroundings were to be all their own.
I cannot follow all the details of their history step by step. St. John’s,
Radcliffe, did not turn out to be paradise, nor did Mary find boundless
capabilities in two hundred and fifty pounds a year. After the first
twelvemonth, the cares of life began again to make themselves felt, and
fatigue and occasional low spirits chequered their career which nevertheless
they still felt to be a fine career. They stayed six years altogether in this
place, and left it for what was supposed to be a much better position, with an
increased number of children and considerable cheerfulness, though not
perhaps with the same elation which had characterised their first setting out.
The second post the curate obtained was that of locum tenens to an invalid
rector, and hopes were expressed, that in case of good service, if the rector
should die, the patron’s choice would most probably fall upon the temporary
incumbent. The prospect was delightful, though sufficiently tempered by
doubt to make Mr. Asquith hesitate about relinquishing St. John’s. But then
it is an understood thing that curates should not consider themselves
permanent incumbents; and there were evidences that the rector would like a
change, though he would not send so deserving a man with so large a family
away. The way the family went on increasing was wonderful, was almost
criminal, some people said. Only poor people, and poor clergymen above all,
permitted themselves such expansion; and what was to become of all those
helpless little things, spectators asked who never attempted to solve their
own question. Nevertheless, they got on somehow as large families do. Mary
had always a smile and thanksgiving for every new-comer, considering it as
a gift of God, and thinking it hard that the poor little intruder should not have
a welcome. And that, I confess, is my idea too, though it is a little out of
fashion. But life was not much of a holiday under such circumstances, as
will be easily understood; and Mary learnt a great many lessons, and went on
learning, and had to contradict herself and change her mind over and over
again as the years went on. She had begun bravely to write every week, as
her aunt charged her; but gradually that good habit had fallen into disuse;
and as the Asquiths moved from one place to another, they lost sight of their
relations, hearing from them only once in a way, when anything remarkable
happened, and at last coming to the pitch that they never heard at all. In
sixteen years, which is the time at which I take up my curate and his Mary in
their daily life again, a great many things had happened. “The girls” at
Horton had both married, one a Frenchman, who took her to live abroad;
another an officer in India. The old people at the Hall were both dead. Uncle
Hugh was an invalid, living mostly in Italy for his health. And all that
belonged to Mary’s youthful life had fallen out of sight. This was the state of
affairs in the curate’s house, when Hetty, the eldest girl, the best child that
ever was born, reached her sixteenth birthday: a day which was celebrated
by a proposal at once exciting, fortunate, and painful, as shall be now set
forth.
 CHAPTER XII.

THE ELDEST CHILD.

H ETTY was sixteen that day. There were nine younger than she was.
When these words are said, coupled with the fact already told that Hetty
was the best child that ever was born, they may not throw much light
upon her character—and yet they will show with tolerable distinctness what
her external position was. She was the best little nurse, the best housemaid,
the most handy needle-woman, the most careful little housekeeper in all
Summerfield, which, as everybody knows, is a suburb of the great town of
Rollinstock, in the middle of England. She could make beef-tea and a
number of little invalid dishes, better, and more quickly and more neatly,
than any one else that ever was known, for, naturally, her mother was often
in a condition to want a little care; and the children had every childish
malady under the sun, all of them together, in the most friendly, comfortable
way, and never were any the worse. Something defended them which does
not defend little groups of two or three in richer nurseries. They sickened
and got well again, as a matter of course, whenever there was any youthful
epidemic about. They were altogether quite an old-fashioned family, having
all the complaints that children ought to have, but remaining impervious to
all the imperfections of drainage and all the dangers of brain exhaustion.
Their blood was never poisoned, nor their nerves shattered. They got ill and
got well again, as children used to do in old days. And Hetty, without ever
setting foot in a hospital or having any instruction, was one of those heaven-
born little nurses who used to flourish in novels and poetry, and who, as a
matter of fact, were found in many families in those days when it was the
fashion to believe that it was a woman’s first duty to serve and care for those
who were her own. Hetty was not aware of any individual existence of hers
apart from her family. They were all one, and she was the eldest, which is a
fact confusing, perhaps, to the arithmetical faculties, but quite easy to the
heart.
The family, by this time, was at its fourth or fifth removal. Mr. Asquith
had not got the living when the invalid rector died to whom he was locum
tenens; and if his heart ever grew sick of his toils and poorly rewarded
labour, it was at the moment when the family had to turn out of the nice old-
fashioned rectory which they had been allowed to occupy during that period
of expectation. For one moment the curate had asked himself what was the
use of it all, and had said, in the bitterness of his heart, that his work never
had time to come to anything, and that all the fond hopes of doing good, and
bettering the poor, and helping the weak, with which he had set out in life,
had come to nought. Women are perhaps not so apt to come to such a
conclusion, and though Mary was aware, too, of many a defeat and downfall,
she did her best to console him. “And then there are the children,” she said.
The poor man, at that moment, felt that the children were the last
aggravation of his trouble, so many helpless creatures to be dragged after
him wherever he had to go. He looked at the hand which his wife had put
upon his to comfort him. What a pretty hand it had once been! and now how
scarred and marked with work, its pretty whiteness gone, its texture spoiled,
the forefinger half sewed away, the very shape of it, once so taper and
delicate, lost. “Oh,” he said, “what a hard life I have brought upon you,
Mary! To think if I had only had more command of myself, you might never
have known any trouble!”
Mary replied with a shriek, “Do you mean if we had never married? I
think you have gone out of your senses, Harry.”
“I think I almost have, with trouble,” said the poor man. And yet, after all,
his trouble was not half hers. It was she who had to bear the children, and
nurse them, and have all the fatigue of them; it was she who had to scheme
about the boys’ shoes and their schooling, and how to get warm things for
the winter, and to meet the butchers and bakers when they came to suggest
that they had heavy payments to make: and to bear all these burdens with a
smile, lest he should break down. When she had sent him out, frightened into
better spirits by the ridiculous absurdity of the suggestion that they might
never have married (which was much the same as saying that this world
might never have been created; and that, no doubt, would have saved a great
deal of trouble), Mary made her little explosion in her turn. “It is much papa
knows!” she cried. “I wonder if he had our work for a day or two what he
would think of it. And now we shall have to pack into a small house again,
where he can have no quiet room for his study. Oh, Hetty, what shall we do?
What shall we do?”
Hetty kissed her mother, with soft arms round her neck. “We must just do
the best we can, mamma,” Twelve-years-old said, “and don’t you notice
nothing turns out so bad as it seems?” added the little philosopher. Hetty,
like her mother before her, had a wholesome love of change, and a persistent
hope in the unknown. And on the whole, barring their little breakings down,
they all appeared with quite cheerful faces in their new place; and life turned
out always to be livable wherever they went. The spectacle of their existence
was a much more wonderful one to spectators than to themselves; for the
lookers-on did not know the alleviations, the dear love among them, which
was always sweet, the play of the children, which was never kept under by
any misfortune, the household jests and pleasantries. They got a joke even
out of the visits of the butcher and baker, those awful demands which it was
so difficult to meet, and called the taxman Mr. Lillyvick, and made fun of
the coal-merchant. And then, somehow or other, the kind heavens only knew
how, everybody was paid in the long run, and life was never unsweet.
And now Hetty was sixteen. She was growing out of the lankness of early
girlhood into a pretty creature—pretty with youth, and sweetness, and self-
unconsciousness, and that exquisite purity of innocence which does not
know what evil is. I am not aware that she had a single feature worth any
one’s notice. Her eyes were as clear as two little stars, but so are most eyes at
sixteen. She was not what her mother had been, but rather what all good
mothers would wish their children to be: something a little more than her
mother, mounted upon the stepping-stone of Mary’s cheerful troubled
existence to the next grade, with something in her Mary had not, perhaps got
from her father, perhaps, what I think most likely, straight out of heaven.
Mary had not been at all afraid of life, out of sweet ignorance and want of
thought; but Hetty knew it, and was not afraid. She had her dreams, like
every creature of her age, her thoughts of what she would do and be when
her hour came; but they never involved the winning of anything, save
perhaps rest and comfort for those she loved. To Hetty life was a very
serious thing. She knew nothing at all of its pleasures,—probably the defect
in her, if she had a defect (and she must have had, for everybody has), was
that she despised these pleasures. When she read in her story-books of girls
whose dreams were of balls and triumphs, and who were angry with fate and
the world when they did not obtain their share of these delights, Hetty would
throw back her head with disdain. “I am sure girls are not like that,” she
would say.
“Oh yes, Hetty, girls are like that!” Mary would reply. “I remember
crying my eyes out because Anna and Sophie went to the hunt ball without
me.”
This would generally lead to recollections of the house which Mary now
called, with a sigh, “my dear old home,” and of all the Prescotts, “the girls,”
and dashing Percy, and “kind old John.” The children had all heard of
Cousin John: how his eyeglass was always dropping from his eye (so well
known was this trait in the family that little Johnny had got into the trick of
it, and would stick a piece of paste-board in his little eye, which when it fell
always produced a laugh), and his light moustache drooping at the corners,
and his lisp, and how he said “Write to me,” if anything was ever wanted.
“And did you ever write to him, mamma?” the children would cry. And
then Mary would explain that she had never written so often as she ought,
and impress the lesson upon them always to keep on writing when they
might happen to be away, or they were sure to be sorry for it afterwards.
“But did you write when you wanted anything?” said Janey, the second
daughter, who was very inquisitive.
“No, of course mother didn’t. As if we were going to take things from
relations, like the Browns!” cried Harry, with a flush of scorn. Harry was a
very proud boy, who suffered by reason of the short sleeves of his jacket and
the short legs of his trousers, as none of the rest did. Mary shook her head at
this, and said there was nothing wrong in taking things from relations when
they were kind.
“But I never did,” she said. “Sometimes I have thought I ought to have
done it; but I never did. He married, and I never heard anything of him
afterwards, and she was a stranger to me. It was that chiefly that kept me
back. I have not heard anything of him for about a dozen years. And whether
he has sold Horton, or what has become of it, I don’t know. It is such a
wrong thing not to write,” she said, returning to her moral; “be sure you
always keep up the habit of writing whenever you go away.”
This, however, has kept us a long time from Hetty’s birthday. Mr. Asquith
had quite recently settled at Summerfield, the western suburb of Rollinstock,
at the time when Hetty completed her sixteenth year. I say settled, for it was
only now that our curate ceased to be a curate, and became, not, alas! rector
or vicar, but incumbent of the new district church lately built in that
flourishing place. It was a flourishing church also, and everything promised
well; but as the endowment was very small, and the incumbent’s income was
dependent upon a precarious addition of pew-seats, offertories, etc., it was
not a very handsome one for the moment, though promising better things to
come. And the fact that he was independent, subject to no superior in his
own parish, was sweet to a man who had been under orders so long. This
beginning was very hopeful in every way. And Mr. Asquith had the character
of being a very fine preacher, likely to bring all the more intellectual
residents of the place, the great railway people—for the town was quite the
centre of an immense railway system—and all the engineers and persons
who thought something of themselves, to his church. This prospect
encouraged them all, though perhaps the income was not very much better
than that of a curacy. And there were good schools for the boys. The one
thing that Mary sighed after was something of the higher education, of
which everybody talks nowadays, for Hetty. But perhaps it is wrong to call it
the higher education. No Greek nor even Latin did Mary desire for her
daughter—these things were incompatible with her other duties—but a little
music, a little of what had been called accomplishments in Mary’s own day!
In all likelihood these things would have done Hetty no manner of good,—
no, nor the Latin either, nor even Greek. There are some people to whom
education, in the common sense of the word, is unnecessary. But Mary had a
mother’s little vanity for her child. Hetty was but a poor performer on the
piano; and her mother thought she had a great deal of taste, if it could but be
cultivated. But music lessons are dear, especially in a town where rich
mercantile folk abound. Alas! the boys’ education was a necessity; the girls
had to go to the wall.
The schoolroom tea was a very magnificent meal on Hetty’s birthday.
Sixteen seemed a great age to the children. It was as if she had attained her
majority. Mary had got her a new white frock for the occasion made long. It
was her first long dress, her toga, her robe of womanhood. And there was a
huge cake, largely frosted over with sugar, if not very rich inside, out of
regard for the digestion of the little ones. And they were all as happy over
this tea as if it had been a sumptuous meal, with champagne flowing. They
had not finished when Mr. Rossmore was announced, who was the Vicar of
Rollinstock and a great personage. Mr. Rossmore was very kind; he was
fond of children, and liked, as he said, to see them happy. And he sent a
message from the drawing-room (in which there were still lingerings of the
old Horton furniture), into which he had been ushered solemnly, to ask if he
might be allowed to share the delights of the children’s tea. He looked round
upon them all with eyes in which there were regrets (for he was that strange
thing a clergyman without any children of his own), and at the same time
that wonder, which is so general with the spectators of such a sight, how it
was that they could be happy on so little, and how the parents could look so
lighthearted with such a burden on their shoulders—ten children, and the
eldest sixteen to-day!
“It is very appropriate that it should be Miss Hetty’s little fête,” said Mr.
Rossmore, “for it is to her, or at least to you about her, that my visit really is
intended.”
“To Hetty!” her mother cried, with a voice which was half astonishment
and half dismay, Mr. Rossmore was a widower, and the horrible thought
crossed Mary’s mind, Could he have fallen in love with the child? could he
mean to propose to her? Awful thought! A man of fifty! She looked at him
with alarmed eyes.
“For Hetty?” said Mr. Asquith tranquilly. He thought of parish work, of
schools, or some of the minor charities, in which the Vicar might wish Hetty
to take a part. And the children, feeling in the midst of their rejoicings that
something grave had suddenly come in, looked up with round eyes. Janey
edged to the end of the table to listen; for whatever was going on, Janey was
always determined to know.
“Perhaps,” said Mary tremulously, “it would be better to bring Mr.
Rossmore his cup of tea to the drawing-room, now that he has seen you all in
the midst of your revels. For this noise is enough to make any one deaf who
is not used to it, like papa and me.”
 CHAPTER XIII.

A CONFERENCE.

T HEY all sat down solemnly upon the old chairs, in their faded paint and
gilding, with their old seats in fine embroidered work, which had been so
handsome in their day, and still breathed of grandparents and an
ancestral home. The Asquiths’ drawing-room had always been rather
heterogeneous, with some things in it which money could not buy, and
which they thought very little of, and some that were to be had cheap
anywhere, for which, having acquired them by the sweat of their brow, they
cared a great deal. They did not remark these contrarieties, having so many
other things to think of, but Mr. Rossmore did, and wondered how certain
articles came to be there, sometimes asking himself how people with so
many graceful old things about them could endure the vulgar new,
sometimes what right the purchasers of the vulgar new could have to that
beautiful old. He did not know anything about their history, but only that
they had a very large family of nice children, and were in consequence poor.
They did not themselves say much of their poverty, but the people about did,
the chief people in the parish, and especially the district ladies, who were
disturbed by it, and wondered, not inaudibly, whether it was possible for the
poor Asquiths to give so many children enough to eat. It was this inquiry,
very much urged upon him, that had brought Mr. Rossmore here to-day.
He was seized with a little timidity when he began to speak. Something in
Mary’s look, he could not have told what, an air of dignity, a half-alarm lest
something should be said to her which should be unpalatable or offensive,