A search for freedom ...

Chapter I

CHAPTEK ONE INTRODUCES TWO IMPORTANT CHARAC- TERS — LITTLE AUNT MARY AND GUS.

Not long ago I read the opening chapter in the autobiography of a distinguished literary woman. Every page of it and every word of it were spent in apologizing for the egotism that must of necessity be apparent in works that naturally embody the personality of the writer, As I continued to read it I wondered if there was anything on earth quite so weak, and often so insincere as an apology. It is a confession of shame, either real or hypocritical; and why should one be ashamed of his personality, or why should it be considered the proper thing to affect shame?

A book may be of infinite worth, but the personality back of it is what makes it so; and it is the glimpses o£ this personality filtering through the book that give it its vital power to enthrall our imagination and arouse our affection.

I had a lesson on the subject of apologies that taught me enough to avoid them forever. I lived in California and ray neighbors were farmers and poor people. Nevertheless, we were social and entertained each other the best we could. It was a matter of pride with us to give good dinners to each other; and a dinner without fried chicken, mashed potatoes and hot biscuit, preserves and pound cake, golden coffee and rich cream, and many other cherished delicacies, was really not respectable — so rigorous was our social code. Moreover, at these dinners the hostess usually indulged in apologies for the many deficiencies supposed to be apparent; thus leaving the impression that she could have done a great deal better if she had been informed of our coming beforehand.

I was returning the visit of one of my neighbors one day when I learned the lesson of being above making an apology ever again — except for a wrong done, or a mistake committed. The lady I was visiting went out to prepare dinner, and was quite a long time about it. This time must have been devoted to her perplexity; it certainly was not given to her dinner, since she had nothing but beans which evidently had been boiling for an hour before my arrival. There was one cup of coffee, and but one. No doubt it was warmed over from breakfast; and it was given to me. Her tablecloth was very white, and everything, though exceedingly poor, was neat. She was a Southern woman, tall and dark and weather-beaten in appearance. In accordance with Southern custom she stood up while the family were at dinner. At first I could scarcely believe it possible that what I saw before me was really the entire dinner; simply beans seasoned with a small piece of pork, and the one cup of coffee. But this was all; and there stood the lady with a palm leaf fan in her hand fanning us while we ate. Net one word of excuse did she offer, though there was a look in her eyes that went straight to my heart and left an indelible impression.

At this time, after the lapse of so many years, all I

O A SEARCH FOR FREEDOM.

can get of that impression is a sense of womanliness beyond the power of words to describe. There was reticence there, and the pride of many generations of culture, all imprisoned within her own individuality, and never to be*betrayed by one word that might seem to reflect discredit upon it — that sacred consciousness of beautiful self-hood so plainly visible through the pathos of her eyes and the gentle dignity of her movements.

Appearances might confess her poverty, but she would not. They might confess the fact that her husband was one of the most trifling, dissipated men in the community, but she would not. They might speak volumes of her degraded and unlovely life, but she would not. Her native queenhood was inviolable. She felt it to be so; and what was more, I felt it too; and I know to this day that what I dined upon was not beans, but the ambrosia of the gods, and served by one of them.

And so in the papers I am writing, I shall give the best I have without apology. It will be the best I have, because it will be the "I" that I am giving. In giving my "I" I shall disclose the "I" in you who read, for we are all off one piece. And oh ! a wonderful thing is the U I," whether it is my "I" or your "I"; such a beautiful thing; such a majestic thing; and so varied in its phases; and for all the variations of it I am so thankful and so glad. No two pages in any life history alike, and yet each one so vital, so alive!

This aliveness! It is this which gives an autobiography its charm. The individual is all there; present in his own words. ■ He brings himself with him in every page. And this is saying wonders; for if a person brings himself into your presence, he has brought a condensed world there for your inspection; and if you are anything of a naturalist you cannot help but be interested.

For my part I am a natural-born naturalist, and like to see the world through many different kinds of glasses; so when, instead of giving me the glass of her own personality to see the world in, the lady of whom I first spoke spent twenty pages in apologizing for the self-hood of herself, my interest was destroyed and I read no more.

But this work I am now writing is not going to be a real autobiography, but only a sketchy sort of reminiscence. I may write away quite consecutively for several chapters, and then jump whole years; and perhaps I may go back to these neglected years to pick incidents out of them later on. At all events I will do the best I can to show how I cut a trail for myself, through jungles of errors and mistakes, from a land of bondage to one of comparative freedom; a freedom that continually grows more free, and will no doubt keep doing sa while I remain an honest searcher for truth.

I wonder if there are many children who feel themselves to be prisoners all through their childish years? This is the way I felt. I used to hear my parents say, "What a good time the youngsters have; especially Helen! Surely, childhood is the happiest period of life;'

Then I would ponder this oft-repeated expression, and sometimes it dismayed me. If childhood was the happiest part, what must the rest be? For I was not happy. With everything to make me happy I was still quietly unhappy. I felt myself hampered and restrained. There was an internal restlessness, as if some imprisoned thing were trying to find expression through me, and could not.

And yet I was more free than ordinary children in that age and under similar conditions; for my mother did not hold me in check overmuch, though at the time I thought she did. There were very few outward restrictions about me; but I carried with me always the fettered feeling of one who wears unseen bonds. When I played childish games with others of my own age, my playing and my enjoyment seemed a pretense to me. If I had been an old person indulging in infantile sports I should not have felt more out of place than I did. I actually had a sense of shama in doing it; it all seemed so foolish; so puerile.

And yet I was not precocious. I think my brain was rather sluggish, and I was very indolent. I was heavy in my movements and disinclined to action; but I doubt if a healthier child was ever born.

My parents considered me thoughtful because I spent so much of my time sitting or lying around quietly, and with an appearance of being in a deep revery over something or other.

But in this matter they nattered me, for I cannot recall that I ever thought much in those days. But I do recall that I always seemed on the verge of thinking, and that the thoughts eluded me. Not that I made an effort to hold them fast, for I did not. I seemed to feel that I would be able to think some day and could easily wait.

It was as if something were ripening in my brain, but was not then ripe. If there is anything in reincarnation it might be believed that some old spirit had taken possession of my baby head, and found difficulty in adapting itself to such crude, unmanageable substance as existed there.

This doctrine of reincarnation is a very strange one. It involves more than its advocates seem to see in it; but perhaps I do not really know what they do see. At all events I shall not discuss the subject here, but will try to pin myself down to the matter in hand. For it seems to me that if only one person, who, from the first, has followed faithfully in the direction of more intellectual light, which means more freedom, will give a history of the road he has travelled, and the obstacles he has overcome, it will be a more practical help to other searchers for truth than the mere cold enunciation of principles, divorced from the personality that gave rise to them.

I recall how in my baby years I rarely accepted the opinions of others, but sought to get at the cause of things myself. For instance, I was one day in the carriage with my parents on the road to Carmi ; where my grandfather and grandmother lived. I could not have been more than three years old at the time. T was beset with anxiety for fear the horses would make a mistake, and not take us there; so I asked my mother if there was any danger on this score. She said u No; that my father was holding the reins that guided the horses, and that they would surely go right."

This did not appear reasonable to me, and I kept thinking and thinking. After a time I came to the conclusion that on the previous evening the stable man must have told the horses that they were to take us to Carmi the next day. I found no difficulty in believing this, and all my anxiety was removed. I suppose I must have manifested a good deal of this kind of reasoning in my early childhood, and that its fallacy taught me to distrust my reasoning powers. Certain it is, I became in time the obedient recipient of all manner of beliefs that poured in on me from other people, and my own reasoning faculties were dormant for many years. If it had not been for this I should have escaped circumstances that almost tortured the life out of me.

Evidently I was a child who sought for the cause in all the events that passed under my observation; but because in these early efforts I made such mistakes as I have spoken of, I became discouraged, and began to doubt my ability to discriminate between right and wrong. This lifted me off the base of my own individuality, and made a mere dependent of me so far as my judgment was concerned.

If my natural tendency to do my own thinking had been properly directed, instead of being ridiculed and crushed, I should never have become the agonized victim of church dogma, and submitted to the awful belief of an endless hell for those whose reasoning powers prevented them from accepting unproven creeds. At this time I know that it was not I who accepted these creeds. The "I" in me had been set aside, and the fears and false beliefs of the world had been substituted. It was these fears, these false beliefs that spoke and acted through my bodily organism for years. And the awakening, when at last it came, was as if I had been lost to myself for an age, and had been suddenly, through a certain overt act which I will tell of further on, restored to myself.

We were a very large family of children, and our father and mother had been mere children themselves when they were married. I was the second child and the eldest girl. I was the laziest little imp that ever lived. If my poor young mother sent me to wash the dishes, I would slip off and go to the garret or somewhere else, and there lying on the floor or the grass I would read "Arabian Nights" the entire afternoon. I knew I would get whipped when I went to supper, but I did not seem to be afraid of a whipping, from which I infer that mother's whippings were very mild.

16 A SEAKCH FOE FBEEDOM.

And, indeed, they must have been. I remember now how the slightest bit of wit from us would make her laugh. She was a glorious laugher, and she evidently thought that we were the smartest children that the world had produced. Gus, my elder brother, and I used to get together and rehearse something that we considered funny previous to entering her presence, after we had been disobedient and expected a whipping; and this expedient was usually successful.

But I have an idea that mother whipped Gus of tener and harder than she did me. He was more afraid of a whipping than I was, and I was more afraid for him, and early learned to screen him by no end of deceptions.

This whipping we all know to be a very great mistake now, but at that time it was thought to be a terrible thing not to whip children. The people really believed they were earning some great future reward, both for themselves and the children, by bringing them up in fear of the lash. Poor Gus must have been a more timid child than I was; and it is the timid children who are most easily ruined by this rough method of punishment. And yet Gus was not ruined.

I remember one time when mother had sent us all to Sunday school, and when I made her believe I had the colic and remained at home (I always hated Sunday school), that long before it was time for the children to return, Grus rushed into the sitting room exclaiming, u Oh! mother, mother, it's in the lesson to-day where old Solomon — and he is the wisest old fellow that ever lived — said, l spoil the rod and spare the child, 1 and now you can't whip us any more forever."

I think mother felt a genuine heart pang as she looked in the boy's bright, earnest, handsome face. She put her arms around him and told him of his mistake. But she had to get the Bible and read it with him before he was convinced. He was greatly disappointed, and I suppose he thought there was no help for him but in being good — a monotonous alternative.

Mother had the belief that children must not be praised; that praise would ruin them. So she told us of our faults and failings, and used such persistent energy in destroying everything like vanity in us, that I really believe she would have crushed every one of us to an extent that would have rendered us unfit for meeting men and women as equals in later life, if it had not been for a "special providence 1 ' in the shape of "little aunt Mary."

Little aunt Mary was two years older than Gus, and four years older than I was. She was the youngest child of her mother, who was dead, and she owed her special rearing to the indulgent influence of her father, one of the most magnificent specimens of manhood that ever lived. Oh! if I only had time to write a character sketch of this loving-hearted, great, kingly soul, I could put an inspiration in it that no personal experiences of my own have power to evoke.

The way grandfather brought up little aunt Mary was to let her bring herself up. They did not live with us, but came often and made long visits; and then there were months at a time when grandfather was absent on business, when little aunt Mary was put under mother's care. This little aunt was a phenomenon. Nobody's opinion had the slightest effect on her character or conduct. For this reason I think she may have been very annoying to her elders. She did not seem to know she had any elders; and the way she expressed her opinion of their weaknesses actually carried their feelings for her clear over the point of exaspiration into the region of perpetual laughter. Mother always laughed when she spoke of her, but there was an expression of perplexity in the laugh, as any one could see.

Mother never seemed to try to establish any authority over little aunt Mary; and I do believe that there was something in the sphere of the child's thought that prevented it. She was a queenly child. She was utterly unconscious of her own ignorance, and entirely loyal to some secret sense of self-respect. She was not a pretty child, though she thought she was; and she grew into one of the most beautiful women that ever was seen. She was never insolent, and was too fearless to lie, or even to equivocate; but she held her own against my mother's sneers and accusations of vanity by the frankest avowals, and sustained her avowals by such argument as her childish brain could suggest, and I never saw her angry in my life. She reigned — a veritable empress — among us children, of whom there were several by this time, and more coming. We were actual servants for her. She did what she pleased with us, and we were proud to be considered worthy of waiting on her, and of receiving her protection in return. For she did, indeed, protect us. If mother perceived the least particle of vanity cropping out in one of us, she nipped it in the bud instantly. And I can remember how little aunt Mary could don her queenly manner on such occasions, and with a face perfectly free from fear would say, for instance, "Sister, why do you say that Helen has red hair? You know it is the poet's rarest golden." ( She had read such stuff as this out of our fairy stories.) "And you know, sister, that Helen is a beautiful child, and the best little girl to mind me that there is in the family. 1 ' It made no difference what mother said after this. Aunt Mary would soon be wearing my best string of beads, leaving me destitute of ornament. Mother — who was really sweet-tempered — often laughed and called me a little dunce; but aunt Mary would again come to my defence, and prove by argument that convinced me — if no one else — that I was a child of vast intelligence.

Gus had now reached an age when he might have become unmanageable, if it had not .been for little aunt Mary. Mother's stringent efforts to keep him at home and away from other boys were making him sly. He had begun to have many a stolen pleasure, and to deceive mother as much as possible. Moreover, he had roped me into his assistance in this deception, so that when he needed some one to prove an alibi for him, a small amount of training would make me entirely competent for the transaction. I was secretly afraid to tell a lie, for I had a wholesome dread of the punishment attached to such transgressions, namely, that the liar "has his part in the lake that burneth with brimstone forever, 1 ' but that seemed a good way off, whereas Gus's whipping was a sure thing and very close at hand. Then, too, I was very young, and Gus had promised me faithfully a hundred times that if I died and went to the "bad place" that he would go there with me and whip the devil and all his imps, and bring me home again.

The supreme trust little girls have in their older brothers is almost pathetic. Gus lied to me, and I lied to mother for him with great willingness; and he spent as much time with bad boys as he pleased. But little aunt Mary changed all this. She told him that she wanted him to stay in of evenings and entertain her. She said she was a fairy queen, and had to have her subjects about her. She told him that there was no boy in all the town that would compare with him. She said she loved to look at him because he was so pretty. And Gus stayed at home of evenings to give little aunt Mary a chance to admire his beauty. She made him read out loud to her and me, though he was a poor reader and hated his books like poison. But little aunt Mary was always acting a part in obedience to some secret thought of her own; a thought that placed her on some high pinnacle in authority, and rendered the presence of obedient worshipers necessary. She made use of us to the utmost extent of her power; but she would not let others do it. If ever for a moment one of us rebelled, she used argument and flattery to conquer us, and this succeeded. She was never angry, and she was never unpleasant in the exhibition of her power.

If mother reproved us, aunt Mary remonstrated. "You ought not to say such things, sister," she would say to mother, "it sounds too hard. You ought not to hurt your children's feelings. They are such good little things, and so pretty and smart."

Mother's ever ready laugh was the usual response to this kind of thing; and I really expect she was pleased to have aunt Mary praise us. At all events there was a decided effect produced; for often when some of the country people, who came to our store to trade, and remained to dine with us, would say, "What a pity your gal has got red hair, 'Lizabeth; she ain't nigh so likely as the boy." Mother would answer quite earnestly, "Her hair is not red. Can't you see for yourself that it is the pure golden of the poets?"

But still she never admitted that any of us were at all good looking except in defence, when we had been attacked.

Little aunt Mary was an artist. Though she strictly avoided doing anything useful, she always took a maternal survey of us when we were dressed for Sunday school, and gave the finishing touch to our toilets. In me she would usually adjust my bonnet so as to make a coquetish display of my curls. For Gus she would pull down the waist of his jacket, and punch the dimple in his cheek a little deeper; and so on down to the baby, who was always flattered by any attention from her. I have seen a six-months-old baby stop crying when aunt Mary entered the room, and look at her with round, inquiring eyes as if asking what it could do to oblige, her. Aunt Mary was always complimentary to the baby in a grave, queenly way, but never took it in her arms, though the little thing often wished to go to her.

The fact is, this child was a queen. I remember that on one occasion she had Gus and me bring up empty dry goods boxes into one of the upper rooms, and cover them with scraps of wall paper and tinsel and bows of old ribbon for her throne, where she wore an apron hind side before for a trail, and sat in state, while we waited on her. It was on this day that we pulled the icing off of mother's big company cake, and brought it and offered it to her on our knees. It seemed to us a great act of condescension on her part to eat. it; but she did eat it, though with a superb indifference that left the impression that nothing was good enough for her.

Afterwards when confronted with the theft, Gus lied with great nimbleness, and I followed suit.

Little aunt Mary was the smallest of us three children. Gus was about an inch taller than she was; I was about her height, but weighed nearly -twice as much, and was usually called u Fatty." Small and delicate looking as aunt Mary was when a child, she grew into a splendidly developed woman, several inches taller than I am.

Little aunt Mary never failed to come to our assistance when we were cast down, which was quite often, as mother believed it to be her duty to take the wind out of our sails whenever she perceived any wind in them. At such times Gus, who was a sensitive child, would cry bitterly; and I, who was not sensitive, and cared very little for mother's opinion at that time, would cry in sympathy with him. Then aunt Mary would say, " Why, little folks, sister don't understand either of you. The reason she has not got a better opinion of you is because she don't know much herself. You are really lovely children. Of course you are not so pretty and smart as I am, but when you get as old as I am, you will be; that is, if you are good and mind all I tell you. 1 '

How my heart would swell with gratitude when she would say such things to us, and Gus's handsome dark eyes would be so soft and luminous that his face was angelic; for he was really one of the most beautiful boys that ever lived, and looked like an infant god in comparison with little aunt Mary; but I did not draw comparisons then. I took aunt Mary at her own valuation, and prayed every night, after my other prayer was said, to be made like her.

CHAPTER II. "SMARTEST YOraGUtf AT EVER LIVED, B GOSH

None of us liked Sunday school. Perhaps I should have said in the first part of this sketch that I was born in Fairfield, Illinois; and, at the time of which I am writing, the town did not contain more than three hundred people. There was no church there, but an occasional preacher preached in the court house. Sunday school was also held in the court house, and aunt Sally Linthecum was the president, vice-president, superintendent and teacher.

She was not my aunt, but was called aunt Sally by everybody. She was an old maid near fifty years of age at this time. She was tall, full-muscled and strong. Her hair was very light colored, but not gray, and she was really a wonderfully handsome blond. It was with difficulty that she could read; but she was very religious, and had started the Sunday school herself. As I remember now, it seems to me that aunt

Sally had complete control of the whole town. I cannot recall that I went anywhere without seeing her; and wherever I saw her she was in command — doing something herself, and giving directions to others. She presided at marriages, births and funerals. She looked after the morals of the entire community. I do not know in what spirit her ministrations were received, but I believe she was rather regarded as a necessary evil.

At Sunday school the children — about thirty — sat on benches that were destitute of backs, and read a verse apiece in the Bible. Never knowing our lessons, Gus and I used to look along the class and count noses, and then count verses so as to discover the verse that would come to us. Then we would study it industriously and be in good shape to read it creditably when our time came, unless it had hard words in it. Whenever we came to a hard word we said, u Latin, skip it," and skipped on to the next word. As aunt Sally did not know the difference, it often happened that there were more "Latin, skip its" in the Bible lesson than anything else.

All this passed off well enough; but when the boys began to trade marbles and to eat green apples on the sly, there was a row. Many a time I have seen the whole school in commotion. Some of the scholars in trying to slip out were collared and brought back and tied to the bench legs with strong cords fished out of aunt Sally's pocket. Others were taken across her lap and well spanked with her slipper. She was spanking Gus one day when my little sister Lib and I remonstrated. We slipped down off the high bench and went to her, holding each other's hands in order to strengthen our courage for the rebellion we contemplated. We were both crying, (jus was squirming and making a noise loud enough to wreck the roof. I raised a little paw that looked like a dimpled white satin pin-cushion and struck aunt Sally on the knee, putting about one mouse power in the blow. Lib raised another small bunch of dimples and struck her on the other knee. Aunt Sally would not have known it if she had not seen it.

"Mean old thing," I said. "Mean.old fing," said Lib.

u Sass me, will ye/' said aunt Sally, dropping Gus and grabbing us. She held us both in one hand while she searched her pockets for a cord. The cord was all in use. Undaunted by this deprivation she lifted her skirts and took off a garter made of flannel listing about two yards long. She tied me to the bench with it; and then taking her other garter she tied Lib up also.