by Sarah E. Chester, November 1877
Doesn't this story seem a smack at the women's rights movement! It's a despicable little story just for that. Plus today Mr. Johns' attentions would be seen in a more sinister light.
A little girl sat squeezed in between an old fat man and his old bony wife in a crowded hall on a sultry evening in October. On one side it was as if feather pillows loomed above her with intent to smother; on the other, sharp elbows came into distressing contact with her ribs. The windows were open; but the hall had not been built with reference to transmitting draughts on suffocating nights for the benefit of packed audiences; and everybody gasped for breath, though everybody fanned—that is, everybody who had a fan, a newspaper, a hat, or a starched handkerchief. Mollie had neither fan, newspaper, hat, nor handkerchief, and yet she of all the audience gasped unawares. She was stifled, but happy. Elbows and bad air might do their worst; her body suffered, but her spirit soared. She was lifted above her neighbors, into an atmosphere where she was conscious of nothing but the eloquence that fell in such soft tones from the lips of the beautiful woman on the stage.
Mollie was fatherless and brotherless. She had no male cousins within a thousand miles. Her only uncle, two blocks off, was a man whose dinners rebelled against digestion, and who might have been beyond the seas for all the good he did her. They were a feminine family,—Mollie, her mother, the old cat and her kittens three,—bereft of masculine rule and care, and in need of money earned by masculine hands.
The mother bore losses and lacks with the philosophy of her age; but Mollie's age was only twelve, and knew not philosophy. She realized that she was a mistake. She was miserably aware that she was a mistake which could never be corrected. Friends repeatedly assured her that it was a great pity she had not been born a boy, and tantalized her with boyhood's possibilities. Frequent mention was made of ways in which she might minister to her mother's comfort if she were a son; and all Mollie 's day-dreams were visions of that gallant son's achievements. She used to close her eyes and see wings and bay-windows growing around their little cottage and making it a mansion; their old clothes gliding away, and fine new robes stepping into their places; strong servants working in the kitchen; pictures stealing up the walls, and luxuries scattering themselves hither and thither, till she felt the spirit of the boy within her, and seemed equal to the deeds he would have done. Then she used to open her eyes wide to the fact of her girlhood and have little seasons of despair. This had been going on a long time, the visions, their destruction by facts, and the consequent despair; for, of course, she had always believed there was nothing to be done. And now here was one telling her that something could be done—that she, even she, the little girl Mollie, had equal rights with boys, and that it was not only her privilege but her duty to claim them. Here was one exhorting her to throw off the yoke of her girlhood, talking of a glorious career that might be hers, of emancipation and liberty, of a womanhood grand as manhood itself. And how the tremendous sentiments, so beautifully uttered, thrilled through Mollie from the crown of her hat to the toes of her boots! She would have given worlds for one glance from that bravest of her sex who had thrown off the yoke, and for a chance to ask her just how she did it. For while Mollie had fully made up her mind to wear her yoke no longer, she did not know exactly by what means to become an emancipated creature. As she walked home with her hand in that of the fat gentleman who had treated her to the lecture, she reached the conclusion that no special instructions had been given because it was taken for granted that each woman's nobler instincts would guide her. She entered the gate a champion of freedom, a believer in the equality of the sexes—a girl bound to be a boy, and trusting to her nobler instincts to teach her how.
No trembling and glancing back over her shoulder for goblins and burglars to-night as she put the key into the door! No scared chattering of teeth in the dark hall! No skipping three steps at a time up the stairs pursued by imaginary hands that would grip at her ankles! She faced the darkness with wide-open eyes, instead of feeling her way with lids squeezed down as had been her custom; and when eyes seemed to look back at her from the darkness, her boyhood laughed at her girlhood, and she did not quicken her pace. But—Mollie was glad to step into the room where the light burned. Her mother had gone to bed early with one of her tired-out headaches, and she only half woke to see that her little girl was safely in. Mollie kissed her softly (for boys may kiss their mothers softly) and took the lamp into the little room beyond, where she always slept.
The first thing that she did was to look in the glass. What a girlish little face it was! How foolishly its dimples came and went with its smiles! In what an effeminate manner the hair crinkled above it, and then went rambling off into half a yard of stylish disorder! Mollie lifted the hair in her hand and surveyed it thoughtfully. Then she took a thoughtful survey of the scissors in her work-basket. Then she reached them. She allowed herself a moment of conscientious reflection; then the boy's naughty spirit crept down through her fingers and set the scissors flying, and the deed was done.
It was not easy to satisfy her mother's amazement and vexation in the morning; but Mollie stumbled through it and went to school. There opportunities were few. She coaxed her teacher to let her study book-keeping, and took one disagreeable lesson in its first principles; but she accomplished nothing else that day except the putting of a general check upon weak-minded inclinations to be frolicsome.
But that evening there was a fair sky, one of the soft, deep skies that make imaginative little girls' brains dizzy; and Mollie tramped down the gravel path to the gate and leaned over; then she soon nestled her head in her arms and looked up and lost herself. Boyhood was far from her dreamy fancies, when they were scattered by a tweak at one of her cropped locks.
"What does this mean?" asked the voice of the neighbor over the fence. "How came it to be done without my leave?"
"Don 't I look manly, Mr. John?" said Mollie.
"What does it mean?" said he, severely.
"That would be telling," said Moilie.
"I intend that you shall tell me," said he.
"Oh, it's a secret!" said Mollie.
"All the better; we 'll keep it together. Tell it."
He was a grown-up man, nearer thirty than twenty years' old, who stooped to take an interest in his neighbor's little girl, and flattered himself that he was bringing her up in the way she should go. It amused him in his leisure moments to try the experiment of rearing a girl to be as unlike as possible the girl of the period.
From mere force of habit, Mollie opened her mouth and poured out her heart to him. He seemed quite impressed by the solemn confession. Mollie studied his face closely while she was speaking, and saw nothing but a grave and earnest interest in her project. She could not see deep enough to discover the indignation that was fuming over the loss of her pretty locks, and the purpose that was brewing to cure her of her folly.
"Don't have any half-way work about it, Mollie," said Mr. John. "Do the thing thoroughly, if you undertake it."
"Oh yes, indeed!" said Mollie.
"If you should need an occasional reminder, I will try and help you," said he; "for of course it wont do to be off guard at all. But now get your hat, and we 'll go for some ice-cream. I know you need cooling off this warm evening."
Mollie skipped about to run toward the house.
"Be careful of your steps," he called; and she tramped as boyishly as she could.
"No, don't take hold of my hand," as she came back and slipped her fingers in his. "Put your hands in your pockets."
"I've only one pocket," she answered meekly, putting her right hand in it.
"Difficulties at once, are n't there?" said Mr. John. "Your clothes want reforming, you see. You'll have to put on Bloomers."
"Oh!" said Mollie.
"I'm afraid you're not very much in earnest," he said. "You surely are not frightened by a trifle like that?" Mollie looked up imploringly.
"Must I?" she asked.
"Well," he answered, her earnestness making him fear that she would actually appear publicly in masculine array, "I don't know that it is necessary at present. A few days wont matter; and, after a while, it will seem to you the natural way to dress."
He was so faithful that evening in reminding her of her short-comings that their tete-a-tete over the little table in the ice-cream saloon, which usually was so cosey and delightful, was quite spoiled. She went to sleep regretting that she had taken Mr. John into her confidence and made it necessary for him to treat her as a boy.
She did not see him again for several days; and meanwhile she had taken her lessons in bookkeeping, practiced the writing hours on heavy masculine strokes, learned to walk without dancing little whirligigs on her tiptoes every other minute, and made some progress in the art of whistling. She felt that she had done much to earn his commendation, and was anxious for a meeting.
On the way home from school, one afternoon, she saw his sister's baby at the window—the roundest, fattest, whitest and sweetest of all the babies that had taken up an abode in Mollie's heart, where babies innumerable were enshrined. There it was, being danced in somebody's hands before the window, and reaching out its ten dear little fingers to beckon her in.
She was quickly in, regardless of her gait. In a moment from the time the tempting vision appeared she was cuddling it in her arms, glibly talking the nonsense that it loved to hear, and kissing and petting it to her heart's content. She was so absorbed that she did not hear Mr. John come in; and he was close by her when she looked up and saw his face—not the genial, welcoming look she had been in the habit of meeting since he became her friend, but one of grave disapproval.
"I am ashamed of you, Mollie," he said. "Boys of your age don't pet babies in that way."
Mollie dropped it—she hardly knew whether on the floor or the stove—and flew. When she got home, she ran into the little back room that used to be her play-room. She was all ready for a good cry, and she closed the door. Then she thought, what if Mr. John were to see her crying like a girl-baby !—and she marched to the window, and through the dimness in her eyes tried to see something cheering. Her nature was very social, and her need of companionship great at that moment; so she turned to the friend who had been brother, sister and child to her through most of her little girlhood—her big doll Helena, who sat in a chair in the corner beholding her agitation with fixed, compassionless gaze.
"Come here, you dear," said Mollie, folding her tenderly in her arms and finding comfort in the contact of her cold china cheek. She had loved her so long that she had given her a soul; and to Mollie's heart the doll was as fit for loving as if she had had breath and speech. She did not play with her any longer, but Helena was still her dear old friend—an almost human confidant and crony.
As she held her closely, suddenly she thought of Mr. John. If he had objected to the petting of babies, what would he say to dolls? She gave her a frantic kiss, put her away, and turned her back on her to reflect; for she did not mean to shirk the most disagreeable reflections in the new line of duty she bad chosen to follow.
If it had really been a human friend whose destinies Mollie considered, she could not have been more serious; and if it had been a human friend whom she at last decided must be put far from her, she could hardly have suffered severer heart-pangs. But she would have no compromising with inclination in this matter. She would be brave and strong, as it became her mother's son to be. So to the lowest depths of the deepest trunk in the garret she mentally consigned Helena. There, beyond the reach of her loving eyes and arms, she should lie in banishment until her heart became callous.
But there was something so repulsive in the idea of smothering human Helena under layers of old garments, that Mollie finally thought of a better way. Helena should no longer be Helena, dear to her heart in all her little feminine adornings and her sympathetic, tender traits of character. She should undergo a change, a radical reform. She, too, should become a boy, and her name should be Thomas. Thenceforth Mollie spent her leisure moments in manufacturing garments suitable for the change; and at last she saw a boy-doll, in roundabout and pantaloons, occupying the chair where Helena had so long sat in dainty dresses. The sight was a perpetual offense to her eyes; but she bore k bravely, keeping in store for herself a reward of merit in Mr. John's approval. She did not fail to mention to him Helena's reform the next time they met, which was one morning before breakfast. She was sweeping the front steps when he came and leaned over the fence and called her.
She shouldered the broom, as she had seen men shoulder implements of labor,—hoes, rakes, etc.,— and tramped toward him. Mr. John watched her, with an expression of disgust under his mustache.
"Well, Bob," he said, "I'm glad to see you out so early. Form good habits before you 're grown, and when you come to manhood you 'll make money by it. Where are your Bloomers to-day? It is n't possible your mind's not made up to them yet?"
There was something in Mr. John's tone and manner which did not seem quite courteous to Mollie; but she had hardly hung her head when he began to talk in his old half-fatherly, half-brotherly fashion; and then, in the lively conversation, she found a chance to introduce Thomas. Mr. John gave her a long, solemn, searching look.
"Mollie," he said, "I am very much afraid you will never succeed as a boy. It seems to me that even an ordinarily masculine girl of your age would have been clear-headed enough to see the absurdity of your little farce. It is nothing but a farce, mere babyishness. You have been playing with yourself and with your doll. No boy could have done it."
There was a short pause; then Mollie's voice piped out into a humble question as to what course a boy would have pursued in the matter.
"Why, that is clear enough," said Mr. John. "If you want to do what a boy would do, dispose of the doll on the shortest notice. Get it out of your sight and mind as soon as possible, and then never give it any more thought than you'd give the rattle you used to shake when you were a baby, or the rubber ring you cut your teeth on."
Could he be made to understand the immense difference between Helena and other toys? Could any words explain to him about the soul that had grown out of Mollie's love into the cloth and sawdust body? Mollie looked up to catch a sympathetic expression that should help her to tell him; but she did not find it.
"You don't understand," she said desperately.
"No?" said he.
"Mr. John," said Mollie, not looking him in the eye, "when you have a doll as long as I have had Helena, it is only natural that she should seem to you like a live person. If I did n't play with her at all, she'd seem real to me, and I should n't like to have her go away any more than I would mother."
"Which tells the secret that you have some sort of human fondness for the lifeless bundle of rags," said Mr. John, "and proves what I feared, that you are a very weak-minded little girl, Mollie."
"You won 't believe in me at all," said Mollie. "You won 't think I am doing my best, and that I ever succeed. You are not like you used to be."
"That naturally follows your being different," said Mr. John. "Of course, we can't have the same feelings toward each other now as when you were contented to be a little girl and to let me treat you as one. I'm sorry you don't find me as agreeable as before, Mollie; but you must acknowledge that I am acting as a friend in doing all that I can to help you in your dear project."
"It is n't dear!" burst forth Mollie, indignantly. "I hate it!—but I 'll never give it up!"
"Of course not," Mr. John said. "Then I presume you are all ready to part with Helena."
"I 'll go and get her," said Mollie.
No one saw the parting in the play-room. It was quickly over, and she was back by the fence.
"Give her to Bessie," said Mollie, putting Helena and her wardrobe into Mr. John's arms. Bessie was one of his many nieces.
"To Bessie!" said he. "Where you can feel that she is away on a visit; where you know that she will be petted and cared for; where you can see her occasionally. If you are sincere in this matter, Mollie, send her off where you can no longer care to think of her. Our ash-man would be very glad to carry her home to his little girls."
Mollie's hands made a wild dive toward Helena as a vision of the little grimy man who crept into their areas for ashes rose before her.
"Decide now," said Mr. John. "Take your doll and be Mollie Kelly again, or be a boy and give her to the ash-man's children without a pang."
Mollie hung her head. There was color coming and going in her cheeks, her fingers trembled,— how they longed to snatch Helena!—and her mind was full of indecision. Mr. John watched her closely, and he thought he saw the tide turning in favor of her girlhood. He held the doll nearer that it might tempt her fingers; but, on the instant, she turned and ran away. He tucked Helena under his coat and carried her upstairs and locked her in a drawer, there to abide until Mollie should want her again.
That was a gloomy day to Mollie. She was out of humor with her boyhood. She was ashamed of herself one moment for bewailing Helena, and furious the next with Mr. John and the ash-man. She felt cross and discouraged, and was glad when the darkness came, and she could go to bed and sleep. But the next morning she was in no cheerier, braver frame of mind; and she walked home at noon, considering plain sewing versus book-keeping as a means of subsistence. Mr. John would have rejoiced if he could have seen his "little leaven" working.
"The gutters on the roof are full of leaves, Mollie," said her mother as she came in. "Stop on your way back to school and send Michael to clean them out. I think we are going to have rain, and we don't want them washed into the pipes."
"How much will he charge, mother?"
"About fifty cents."
"That fifty cents shall buy something for you," said Mollie to herself. "The boy of the family shall clean the roof."
There was just enough recklessness in her mood to make her rather enjoy than fear the prospect. She left her mother getting dinner, and took a broom and escaped up the garret stairs and through the scuttle. The roof did not slope steeply, and she let herself down with an easy slide to the rear eaves. She rested her feet on the edge of the house and swept as far as her arms would reach east and west. Then she shifted her position and swept again until the whole length was clean.
She heard her mother calling her to dinner, but she had the front gutter yet to sweep, and, climbing up, went down on the other side. There was a thought which gave zest to her work on that side,—Mr. John would be coming home that way to dinner and would see her. Besides, other people would see her, and no passer-by should say that she did not do her work as thoroughly and fearlessly as any boy. She had taken for granted that Mr. John's eyes would be drawn upward; but when he had walked almost by, looking straight ahead, she sent him a shrill call. He looked at the windows, around the yard, and even as far up as the trees.
"On the roof," screamed Mollie, and in her excitement she forgot her situation and lost her balance and slipped,—not far, but one foot went out beyond the eaves into the air. The other one rallied to the rescue, supported her whole weight, and helped her to regain her position. Danger was over in a moment, but it had been danger of death, and Mollie's heart beat wildly, and a faintness came over her. Still through it all she was able to see Mr. John's approving smile as he lifted his hat and waved it gayly in applause.
"He would n't care if I had fallen and been killed," thought Mollie, as she recovered herself. "All he wants is to have me succeed in being a horrid boy. I've a mind to give it up just to spite him."
She could not know—so successfully had he concealed his agitation under that bland smile—how faint he, too, had been in the moment of her danger, nor how fast his heart was still beating as he walked on, nor what resolves he was forming to put a speedy end to her boyhood.
He stopped on his way back from dinner to tell her that he had engaged to take a party of his nephews and nieces nutting that afternoon, and that he wanted her to come.
"It will be so nice to have a big boy on hand, Mollie," said Mr. John, "especially one that is n't afraid of heights. We may have some to climb."
Not a word about her danger and his gladness for her safety, and she knew he had seen her narrow escape. But she felt so gay over memories of Mr. John's nutting parties, and the prospect of another, that she forgave him all, and prepared to be thoroughly happy that afternoon.
School closed at three o'clock, and Mollie flew to Mr. John's yard, where they were all waiting. She came dancing by the gate, her cheeks rosy, her eyes shining,—just her old self, as she had been in the days when no boyhood loomed like an ugly shadow between her and Mr. John. He saw and charged himself to be stony. So he gave no better response to her impulsive greeting than he would have given an ordinary boy. Her spirits fell a degree; but with those happy children bobbing around her, expecting her to be the happiest of all, they could do nothing but rise again.
Mr. John did not offer to lift her over fences as he lifted the other girls; he even called on her to help the little ones over. He held back branches that came across other girls' paths; he let her clear her own way. He carried Kittie and Bessie, and Esther and Dora, over the brook; he let her splash across on the stones with the boys. He gallantly made cups and gave the other girls to drink; he suggested to Mollie that she should scoop the water up in her hand, as he was doing for his own use.
She wished many a time before they came to the walnut-trees that she had staid at home. She wished her boyhood's days were over, or had never been. She could n't bear Mr. John, and all the children noticed that she moped, and asked her why.
Well, there were no nuts when they got there. Mr. John had known there would n't be. They should have come much earlier in the day to find these trees full, and the next trees were too far away. So they concluded to turn their nutting party into a picnic. They had a basket of provisions, and Mr. John sent the big boys into the next lot to get wood for a fire. Then came his grand opportunity for crushing Mollie. He called her, and she ran to him gladly, ready to take him back to her favor on his own terms.
"Please, go and help the boys bring wood for our fire," he said. "They have all gone but you."
She went, but not without giving him a look that actually made him blush for his rudeness. She went with the aspect of a tragedy queen, and by the time she overtook the boys she had calmly made up her mind to two things: never, never again to be friends with Mr. John, and to give up her boyhood just to spite him. But one more temptation still held her. There it all, was a little cliff over in that next lot, stony and steep, and high enough to make a leap which it was some credit to a boy to achieve. The boys stood on the edge, measuring the distance with experienced eyes and preparing to go over, Now Mollie as a girl had always been a very good jumper, so she resolved at once to try the leap, and have the report of her valiant deed carried bade to Mr. John. She joined the boys, and seeing that one after another went down safely, she soon asked for a turn. She was gravely remonstrated with. She was overwhelmed with sage masculine advice, but she swept her way clear and jumped—with all the recklessness of her reckless mood. She knew well enough the backward inclination proper for her head, what the relative positions of her knees and chin should be, and if she had taken the least forethought might have redeemed the declining reputation of her boyhood. The knowledge flashed across her in her swift descent that her spine had not preserved the proper perpendicular, and that she was coming down wrong. Chin and knees knocked together as she fell in a heap on the grass below.
It was a caving in of skull, she thought, that made that horrible crashing pain and that sent lightning dancing on a black background before her eyes, then blinded her quite. Nothing but a general chaos of skull and brain could make such terrible pain. She wondered if her friends would be able to recognize one dear lineament in the jumble of her features. She thought what a sad fate it was to die young. She wondered how Mr. John would feel now! and then she found that light dawned upon her and that she had an eye open. In a moment she discovered that the sense of hearing, too, had not abandoned her; for the boys had reached her by this time, and she heard Mr. John's nephew, John, saying:
"She 's knocked her teeth through her lip, that's all. I did it once when I jumped wrong and hit my chin on my knee. She 'll soon be all right."
Two eyes open now, and she saw a bloody frock, and what seemed an army of boys; for there was something still the matter with her vision which caused it to multiply.
"Boys, boys, nothing but boys!" thought Mollie, dropping her lids. "Where did they all come from, I wonder? There must be a thousand. I never want to see another. I would n't be one for the world. I wish they'd go away."
Then she felt some one bathing her face gently, and when the water had refreshed her, she ventured another peep at the world. Boys around her still; but she could see now that their number was only four, and the faces those of friends.
"Cheer up, Mollie," said John, Jr. "You got a hard knock, but you 're coming on. Bob's gone for the phaeton, and we 'll have you home in no time."
They propped her up against a tree, and continued to bathe her head with water from Jerry's felt hat, filled at the little brook close by.
All this while Mr. John had been accounting for their absence by supposing that Mollie was taking some sort of revenge on him, and he would permit none of the girls to go in search of the wanderers.
Not until Bob and the phaeton appeared did news of Mollie's valiant deed reach him. Then he went to her at once, and saw her pale and bloody.
But to display weakness now might be to lose all, reflected Mr. John; so he kept back the words of sympathy that were on his lips as he leaned down and offered to carry her to the phaeton.
"I prefer to walk, thank you," said Mollie, her pride giving her strength to rise and take the arm which John, Jr., stood ready to offer. However, Mr. John forcibly made an exchange, and, in spite of Mollie, half led and half carried her to the road.
"Don't be discouraged, Mollie," he said as he put her in, while Bob was busy at the halter. "The next time you 'll jump like a man."
"That nonsense is all over, thank you," said Mollie, very loftily, though not very clearly, because of her swollen lips. "Think what you please of me," she mumbled. "It is all ended; and it might have ended sooner, too, if I'd taken better advice."
"With better advice it never would have ended, you contrary little minx," said Mr. John to himself as she drove away.
The doctor came and Mollie was ordered to bed; but even his opiate did not make her sleep. It was soothing, indeed, to lie there in the twilight with her hand in her mother's, and feel that she was her little girl entirely, no more to be her boy while life should last. And pleasant visions of a Gothic school-house, where she should some day be mistress of sweet, rosy-cheeked children, rose gracefully on the ruins of her manly aspirations.
By and by the bell rang, and her mother brought a lamp, and a package which Mollie sat up and opened. There, with a note pinned on the left leg of her trousers and a box of Mollie's best-beloved candies clasped on her jacket, lay Helena.
"I have never been to the ash-man's house, Mother Mollie," said the note. "I have been visiting Mr. John's cuffs and collars in the bureau drawer. I want my girls' clothes on to-morrow. I claim it as my right. We all have our rights. Put me in dresses and take me home to the playroom. You have your rights too, and I would n't let any one tell me that I had n't a right to be a girl. It is my opinion that if you had been meant for a boy you would have been made one. Come, mother, cuddle me up, and let's go to sleep and have sweet dreams, and a blithe waking to girlhood in the morning, when we will make up with Mr. John; for he sends these chocolate-creams to let you know that he is sorry."
"So we will, dear," said Mollie, tucking Helena's head under her chin. "You were always wiser than your mother, child."
