S OF b
 
 LUA HOLLISTER. 
 
 7 O~\S\jL*JsC(^-*~
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF DODD'S SISTER.
 
 THE 
 
 EVOLUTION OF DODD'S SISTER 
 
 OP EVERYDAY LIFE. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLOTTE WHITNEY EASTMAN. 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK : 
 RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCXCVII.
 
 Copyright, 1897, by Rand, McNally & Co. 

 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The boy, his surroundings and develop- 
 ment, have been the subject of study to 
 many thoughtful men. 
 
 Bishop Vincent in "Tom and His Teach- 
 ers," Burdette in "The Rise and Fall of the 
 Mustache," William Hawley Smith in "The 
 Evolution of Dodd," and many others have 
 presented studies on different phases of boy 
 life. 
 
 But what of the sisters of these boys? 
 Are they receiving as much thought and 
 study as they require, or have they reached 
 the Utopian age in their development 
 wherein all things are so ordered as to 
 evolve the best possible woman from the 
 girls in our charge? It is very evident to 
 any one giving the subject attention that 
 we have not attained to that happy condi- 
 
 2061734
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion. There are many women who are 
 variously failures. 
 
 For Dodd's sister I have chosen a type of 
 woman who is become exceedingly com- 
 mon. She is the woman who has made 
 possible those abominable discussions on 
 the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure;" she 
 considers that the divine purpose in her cre- 
 ation is the same as in the case of the lilies 
 of the field; "They toil not, neither do they 
 spin, yet .... Solomon in all his 
 glory was not arrayed like one of these." 
 
 As a woman she is a failure, although 
 society will not recognize her as such; for 
 it never admits that a woman can be a fail- 
 ure in any but a moral sense. 
 
 To discuss her needs as they differ from 
 the needs of the boy in the public schools 
 has been the motive of this book. In un- 
 dertaking this, it has been necessary to deal 
 with some elements of school life that are 
 rarely discussed, but without which the sub- 
 ject can never be truthfully dealt with. 
 
 The powerful influence of certain condi-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 tions in our schools upon the final character 
 of this girl must become patent to any one 
 giving the subject careful study. 
 
 But the school is not alone responsible 
 for this failure. There is a combination of 
 other forces that contribute to produce her. 
 Some of these we find in the home; some 
 in the moral conditions of our schools ; and 
 more than most people think in the physical 
 development of our girls in the high school.
 
 THE 
 
 EVOLUTION OF DODD'S SISTER. 
 
 BABYHOOD. 
 
 A new baby came last night at Dodd's 
 house, and the boy had scarcely recovered 
 from the fit of sulks into which he had gone 
 on that occasion. He had been taken forci- 
 bly from his mother's warm bed by a 
 strange woman and laid on the couch in 
 the study. His vigorous kicks and screams 
 soon brought his father, who found that it 
 would require all his time and attention to 
 quiet the young man. 
 
 He first tried to reason with him, but 
 arguments were scorned. Then he tried 
 the effect of his glass paper-weight, but it 
 was dashed to the floor with a renewed vol- 
 ley of screams. 
 
 "Let papa sing to you," he persisted gen-
 
 10 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 tly, but while music may have charms to 
 soothe the savage breast, it utterly failed 
 on this occasion. 
 
 "Would he like his papa to walk with 
 him?" At the very suggestion he straight- 
 ened out stiff and threatened to hold his 
 breath. 
 
 "What would papa's boy like?" 
 Something certainly must be done to 
 quiet this outrageous racket. It would an- 
 noy his mother. 
 
 "Would he like to play with the clock?" 
 Suddenly he paused in his screaming 
 with a pose of his little body that might 
 mean instant renewal if the clock were not 
 quickly forthcoming. As a last resort the 
 only thing in the whole house that his 
 mother had persistently refused to let him 
 have was brought down, and a few mo- 
 ments of peace were secured while Dodd 
 did effective work among the wheels. 
 
 The father had a faint notion that his duty 
 required him elsewhere, but Dodd con- 
 tinued to differ so emphatically upon that
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 11 
 
 point that he was compelled to give his at- 
 tention to the boy and the clock, and the 
 more reluctantly he staid the more emphatic 
 the boy was in his demands. 
 
 So the deluded father remained in the 
 only place where he was of the least serv- 
 ice, while the great tragedy in the next 
 room was being enacted. 
 
 At last, much against its will, the little 
 head fell on the father's shoulder, and Dodd 
 was quiet. 
 
 With fear and trembling he laid him on 
 the couch and tip-toed out of the room. As 
 he stepped into the other room, the old 
 doctor announced in an apologetic and 
 sympathetic way, 
 
 "A daughter, sir." 
 
 The tone impressed the mother 
 strangely; it came so far from expressing 
 the thrill of pleasure that went tingling 
 through her as she knew that a little girl 
 had come to her heart and home. There 
 was altogether lacking that note of triumph 
 that this same doctor had given when he
 
 12 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 had announced the arrival of Dodd two 
 years before. Of course she knew that sec- 
 ond babies were not such congratulatory 
 affairs as first ones; and if the first one was, 
 as Dodd, not yet out of his babyhood, the 
 doctor knew that the new baby had not 
 come in answer to special prayers. That 
 might have explained why the tone was 
 sympathetic instead of congratulatory. 
 
 Not at all, dear mother. It would have 
 been much worse if that had been the first 
 baby. That is only a genteel way that men 
 doctors have of telling you that you have 
 not performed as praiseworthy an act in 
 bringing a girl into the world as you did 
 in bringing a boy. 
 
 In the coming century, when women 
 have demonstrated that a man is as much 
 out of place in presiding over a birth as he 
 would be in caring for a new bora babe, 
 and women minister to women, the girl baby 
 shall have a triumphant note all its own. 
 
 Women might just as well face the fact 
 that, while the poets have in all time ex-
 
 
 XJDD'S SISTER. 13 
 
 tolled them, ??gislators have expressed the 
 real sentiment of men toward them, and 
 doctors have ushered them into this world 
 with a word of apology. 
 
 Now, there is a reason for this, that is 
 as fundamental in humanity as the verte- 
 bral column. In the very earliest condi- 
 tions of mankind they extolled above all 
 other characteristics, brute strength. And 
 to-day, in our boasted civilization, crowds 
 will go frantic over a pugilist whose only 
 attraction is his muscles. 
 
 In the very heart of our educational sys- 
 tem, among the colleges of the land, the 
 man who can jump or run beyond the or- 
 dinary will have his name trumpeted to the 
 world, while his super-intellectual compan- 
 ion has only a small college circle for ad- 
 mirers. 
 
 There we find in humanity this love of 
 physical force, and a corresponding con- 
 tempt for physical weakness. 
 
 There was also a strong desire to op- 
 press the weak. In those early times of our
 
 14 THE EVOLUTION )P 
 
 race the strong man was king and the weak 
 man or the weak nation was scorned and 
 oppressed. 
 
 O, civilized man, don't think for one mo- 
 ment that you are beyond it. In the laws 
 of this country you will find abundant proof 
 of the fact that whenever the interests of 
 man and woman differ, the law favors the 
 man. The same love of physical strength 
 and abuse of physical weakness clings to 
 us yet. 
 
 Only when women have used their intel- 
 lectual force to oppose it have they ever 
 been able to compel the law-makers to enact 
 laws that will give them the same protec- 
 tion that it gives to the men. There has 
 been a fatal mistake made if this old rela- 
 tion was to have been kept up. Fathers of 
 the nation, drive the women out of the 
 schools, or your great-grandsons will never 
 be able to be the lords of creation. 
 
 Then there is another strong reason why 
 this new girl baby called for sympathy. 
 Away back in that early time when society
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 15 
 
 was unformed, and the nations held their 
 territory through their strength, every wom- 
 an meant just so much more of a burden 
 to the state; every man, so much more 
 help ; and naturally the advent of a boy was 
 a cause of rejoicing. 
 
 No doubt the father strutted around as 
 if he had done something to be proud of, 
 and treated his friends to whatever in that 
 day represented cigars and it may be beer. 
 
 What a pity it is that the roosters in the 
 barn-yard can not know the sex of each 
 egg that is laid! It would save them such 
 an amount of crowing. 
 
 As society came more into form, the 
 daughters were like other chattels; they 
 must be disposed of to the best advantage. 
 
 The Catholic convent afforded a refuge 
 for third and otherwise undesirable daugh- 
 ters. In fact, it has not been until a date 
 within our memory that a daughter did not 
 promise to be something of a burden to her 
 father. And even now we find a good many 
 fathers who consider that they have failed
 
 16 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 in their duty if they do not support their 
 daughters in idleness, and daughters who 
 remain long under these parental roofs soon 
 acquire a feeling of pride in dependent wom- 
 anhood. 
 
 But the modern girl who goes through 
 college, and many others who come in 
 touch with the spirit engendered there, 
 have a growing feeling of independence, 
 and a strong desire to be self-supporting. 
 
 We shall soon consider the daughter who 
 sits in her father's parlor and waits for the 
 conquering hero to come, as on a par with 
 the man who consumes his time and energy 
 in decorating himself and strutting about 
 to be admired, and a feminine form for dude 
 and dandy will be invented. 
 
 We have no current word to express fem- 
 inine insipidity ; not, as surely every observ- 
 ing person knows, because it does not exist, 
 but just because there is a certain admira- 
 tion for this kind of womanhood. The old 
 oak-and-vine idea still prevails. 
 
 When this idea of something to be sup-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 17 
 
 ported is eliminated from womanhood, the 
 baby girl will be considered one of God's 
 choicest blessings at her birth, even as she 
 is now a few weeks later. It is strange 
 how this feeling is confined to a short space 
 of time after her birth. 
 
 Scientists tell us that the characteristics 
 of our progenitors show themselves more 
 plainly in our infancy than at any other 
 time, and it is the same with this rem- 
 nant of barbarism. The circumstances of 
 the birth of the baby girl are no criterion 
 of her future condition except in the heart 
 of her mother. For let the world say what 
 it will, the mother's heart is never satisfied 
 until it has a daughter for its own. The 
 home is made so lovely by her presence that 
 the parents soon realize that nothing can 
 ever take the place in the home that a little 
 girl fills. 
 
 A profane old doctor once expressed the 
 whole matter in a nutshell. He had been 
 attending the advent of the third little girl, 
 upon which occasion the father had ex-
 
 18 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 pressed his disapprobation in very strong 
 terms. With the freedom that only family 
 doctors acquire he said, 
 
 "O, shut up. In a week you won't give 
 a - which it is." 
 
 And he was right. That third girl was 
 her father's especial pride. A few years 
 ago there appeared a series of articles in 
 one of our magazines on the question, 
 "Should the girl have a dowry?'' 
 
 One writer said, "Now, why not say when 
 the girl is born, 'We must now begin and 
 save for Dorothy's dowry.'" 
 
 For the love of woman-kind, don't! 
 
 Just as she is hoping for a decent recep- 
 tion in this world, don't blast it all by sad- 
 dling upon her parents a burden at her ar- 
 rival. If Dorothy does not bring to her 
 husband dowry enough in a helping heart 
 and hand, let her go and earn her living in 
 some other way. Not that a dowry is not 
 a desirable thing, but train Dorothy to ap- 
 preciate the fact that if she does her duty 
 as wife and mother, she has earned her right
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 19 
 
 to live, whether or not she ever brings a 
 dollar into the family treasury. 
 
 Teach her, also, that the long hours of 
 a mother's labor, although not so recog- 
 nized in the laws of men, are just as val- 
 uable as a creative power as the day's labor 
 of her husband; and though the law never 
 recognizes her right to will a dollar of the 
 family property away from her husband, 
 that it is merely a man-made law, and she, 
 before the bar of justice, is equal partner 
 with him in all the rights of the family. 
 
 Teach her these things, and she will be 
 of infinitely more value to the human race 
 than a dozen dowries could make her. 
 
 But of these things the mother and father 
 at the parsonage had little time to think. 
 
 The baby had come with that heritage 
 of American babies, a weak stomach, and 
 the whole list of patent foods were tried with 
 little success, although each can came war- 
 ranted to fit the case, adorned with the por- 
 traits of unnumbered fat and lusty babies 
 that it had saved from an early grave. How-
 
 20 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ever, with much worrying from the mother, 
 and with much complaint from the father 
 as the dollars rolled out of his pocket, the 
 baby survived through the first three criti- 
 cal months. 
 
 The little one was tended with all a moth- 
 er's loving care. It was not a baby that 
 was scientifically trained in every respect. 
 All the new ideas with regard to the care 
 of a baby were not readily received by this 
 mother. To her many of them bore the 
 stamp of masculinity, and did not appeal 
 to her mother sense; and when a wise sis- 
 ter told her, "You should never rock your 
 baby to sleep," her usual mildness was very 
 much disturbed, and she showed more spir- 
 it than was consistent with the conventional 
 minister's wife. 
 
 "I would like to know why I shouldn't 
 rock my baby! Hasn't she cost me enough, 
 that I shouldn't get every drop of sweet- 
 ness out of her that I can?" 
 
 "Yes, but if you ever want to go away 
 any place, you will always have to stay to
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 21 
 
 rock the baby first. I think it a great 
 nuisance. You might just as well train her 
 to get along without you. She is a great 
 deal better off, and you will have so much 
 less care." 
 
 "\Yhy, I enjoy these half hours with my 
 baby better than I do going to anything." 
 
 "O, well, of course if you want to make a 
 martyr of yourself, you ought to have the 
 blessed privilege." 
 
 She did want to make a martyr of her- 
 self. The maternal love filled her whole 
 being; and in the long years afterward, 
 when she took the little worn shoes out of 
 their corner in the old trunk, when the little 
 feet that wore them were far along on their 
 journey, and far away from the loving moth- 
 er heart, as she pressed to her cheek the 
 little empty shoes, how those moments all 
 came back, when the little head lay on her 
 shoulder, and the pink feet were crowded 
 into the palm of her hand, and the velvet 
 touch of the little fingers was on her cheek. 
 The years of trouble and care that lay be-
 
 22 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 tween faded away and she knew that never 
 in the whole experience of motherhood were 
 there sweeter moments than those twilight 
 half hours when she rocked her baby 
 asleep. 
 
 The little shoes that are stored away in 
 the old trunk what secrets do they hold 
 that send the baby's memories crowding 
 into the mothers heart faster and thicker 
 than all the other little garments laid away? 
 The little feet that wore them "must wan- 
 der on through hopes and fears, must ache 
 and bleed beneath their load," and the 
 mother, who is now 
 
 "Nearer to the Wayside Inn, 
 Where toil shall cease and rest begin," 
 
 feels a wonderful rush of tenderness for the 
 little feet that have left their impress on the 
 little worn shoes. 
 
 "Well, this baby must have a name, 
 papa." 
 
 "Certainly. Let us give her a good Chris-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 23 
 
 tian name. My mother's name was Su- 
 sannah. Suppose we call her Susan." 
 
 "Susan indeed! I'll never call this sweet 
 little thing Susan. I think Berenice and 
 Benita would be very pretty." 
 
 "Pure foolishness, both of them. Do let 
 the child have a name with some character 
 to it. I would like to give her one with 
 some inspiration like Doddridge. Martha 
 or Sarah would be a noble name." 
 
 "Why, if you must have a Bible name, 
 let's take Ruth. That is pretty." 
 
 "Very well, if you like it. But don't give 
 her a name that she'll be ashamed of if she 
 grows to be a noble woman." 
 
 So Ruth she was called. 
 
 The chances were that Ruth would have 
 discipline enough to bring out her nobility 
 young, for Dodd's attitude toward the new 
 baby could never be questioned. It was 
 from the start 
 
 "Muzzer's dot a baby, 
 Ittle bitsy sing; 
 Sink I most could put her
 
 24 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Froo my rubber ring. 
 Got all my nice kisses, 
 Got my place in bed; 
 Mean to take my drum stick 
 An crack her on the head." 
 
 And the moment that the mother's back 
 was turned he proceeded to carry out his 
 intention in some form or another, until she 
 was willing that he should live most of the 
 time in the street. 
 
 But the baby Ruth managed to live 
 through it all in a marvelous way that only 
 babies understand. She soon began to de- 
 velop bewitching dimples, and to her moth- 
 er's inexpressible delight, the little lock of 
 yellow hair that hung on her fair white 
 forehead curled into a ringlet, and the eyes, 
 that were merely round and indistinct in 
 their coloring, took on a most charming 
 curve and shone with a soft violet light. 
 
 And the mother saw that her baby girl 
 was beautiful, and she was glad. Dodd 
 was not a beauty; but then, Dodd was a 
 boy, and even her prosaic preacher hus-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 25 
 
 band could see the advantage of beauty in a 
 girl! 
 
 She had heard him say only last Sunday 
 in his sermon, when describing a man to 
 whom this world had given all things good, 
 that he had sons who were upright, no- 
 ble, gifted in intellect and heart, and daugh- 
 ters who were beautiful. 
 
 Little difference though their hearts were 
 small and cold and selfish, and their minds 
 held no more than a sieve they were beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 Why should she not think it God's great- 
 est gift to woman? Did she not see in her 
 daily life did not every poem and every 
 story prove, that beauty is a great and won- 
 derful possession? Had she not seen bril- 
 liant men and good men choose for their 
 wives women whose only attraction, whose 
 only endowment, was their beauty? 
 
 It was the exception when the judge left 
 Maud Muller to her lot of raking hay. He 
 usually married her in haste, and then when 
 he contemplated the twins he "wished that
 
 26 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 they looked less like the man that raked 
 the hay on Muller's farm." 
 
 And little Ruth was beautiful; no one 
 could question it. And, indeed, no one tried 
 to. On the contrary they vied with each 
 other in calling her a beautiful little darling, 
 and in presenting her mother with dainty 
 clothing for her to wear, so that when her 
 babyhood days were past and she was con- 
 sidered in the eyes of the law ready for the 
 moulding that the public school gives, lit- 
 tle Miss Ruth, as she liked to be called, had 
 a very distinct and well defined idea of her 
 personal beauty and her pretty clothes.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 27 
 
 GIRLHOOD. 
 
 That first day at school was an occasion 
 that Ruth had looked forward to with 
 eagerness, for she had plans for a small 
 victory. The mild, adoring mother said 
 with gentle persuasion, as she was being 
 prepared, 
 
 "Ruth, dear, you ought not to wear your 
 brown slippers. Auntie sent them to wear 
 with your new dress. Your shoes will do 
 very nicely for this fall at school." 
 
 "O, I don't want to wear those horrid 
 shoes! Can't I wear them just to-day? I'll 
 be just as careful. Auntie May won't care, 
 I just know she won't, and I won't get a 
 speck of dirt on them. Can't I, mamma?" 
 
 "I guess not, dear." 
 
 Down the round cheeks the tears rolled, 
 for it was a matter of real grief to her. 
 
 "O, yes, please do, mamma; I want to
 
 28 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 just to-day. I'll be so careful. I won't 
 play at all." 
 
 "Well, if you want to so much, wear 
 them. But I think you would have a much 
 happier time if you wore your shoes." 
 
 The slippers were on in a twinkling, and, 
 as the curls were being brushed, the next 
 question was mooted. 
 
 "I'll want my new ribbons if I have those 
 slippers, won't I, mamma?" 
 
 "They are so fresh that we must keep 
 them for Sunday; the old ones are to be 
 used for school." 
 
 "But this is the first day, mamma. I 
 ought to have something different, you 
 know." 
 
 "Well, only for to-day, remember." 
 
 "And my white apron that has the Swiss 
 embroidery on it I can wear that, can't I, 
 mamma?" 
 
 "You will tear that if you try to play, 
 my dear. The heavier one will do just as 
 well." 
 
 "I'll be so careful; I won't play a single
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 29 
 
 speck. Aunty said those heavy ones looked 
 so common, so she gave me this one just 
 on purpose to look nice in. I'm sure she 
 would want me to wear it." 
 
 "Then you must be very careful." 
 
 "O, I will." 
 
 Her first victory was won; for she felt 
 that she would be the most "proud and 
 stylish" girl that went to that school. 
 
 Her childish ideal was fixed, and she en- 
 larged it as the years went by; but it was 
 always the same ideal. 
 
 Fresh and sweet as a flower she looked 
 as her mother gave her the last caressing 
 pat and kissed her good-bye. 
 
 "Now you will be a good girl, I am sure, 
 dear. You always are.'"' 
 
 The sighs that had been inwardly heaved 
 over unpromising brother Dodd when he 
 made his first appearance in the school room 
 were in strong contrast to the greeting that 
 was accorded to this dainty bit of pink and 
 white femininity, with eyes so moist and 
 touchingly suggestive of the late grief over
 
 30 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 the brown slippers. The teacher came to 
 meet her with manifest delight as soon as 
 she saw her enter the door. 
 
 "O, you little darling! Have you come 
 to school? Can you tell me what your name 
 is? Where did you get those lovely curls 
 and such cunning little slippers? You are 
 going to come every day, aren't you? 
 Won't you kiss me?" 
 
 O, yes, Ruth would kiss her, although 
 herself not fond of promiscuous kissing. It 
 would have been very improper to refuse 
 to kiss the teacher; so she submitted in a 
 very graceful way, and the young lady nev- 
 er discovered that it was other than a de- 
 light to the child. 
 
 With herself it was such a constant habit 
 that she never imagined that there were na- 
 tures to whom public and promiscuous kiss- 
 ing seemed excessively vulgar. She might 
 have comprehended that in the light of hy- 
 giene it was dangerous, but that it might 
 also be aesthetically offensive, never oc- 
 curred to her.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 31 
 
 These eternal kissers. If they would only 
 confine their kisses to those whose tastes 
 are similar to their own, they would not be 
 such public nuisances. But no one escapes. 
 
 The teacher with the kissing habit has 
 so many at her mercy. She ordinarily 
 kisses only the attractive ones, but there 
 have been reports of those with such os- 
 trich-like stomachs that they could kiss the 
 whole school. When they do what they are 
 given to see is their duty in this heroic style, 
 while it maybe momentarily disagreeable to 
 some, yet there are no aching or rebellious 
 little hearts under the shabby aprons of lit- 
 tle ones from lowly homes that wished they 
 were pretty enough to be kissed. 
 
 The teacher was young and gushing. 
 She was but lately a high school girl, and 
 her apprenticeship in the training school 
 had not given her the thoughtfulness for 
 others' feelings that a few more years of 
 life might give. She had a great deal of con- 
 fidence in her own judgment, but her sus-
 
 32 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ceptibility to golden curls and pretty slip- 
 pers was not diminished in the least. 
 
 Was it a part of that teacher's duty to 
 cultivate vanity, and entirely ignore the feel- 
 ings of little hearts that beat under plain 
 gingham aprons? An admiring smile would 
 have been just as dear to little Katie Kabrin- 
 ski, indeed much dearer because of its rari- 
 ty. But that young teacher was governed 
 more particularly by impulse than principle 
 in these matters, although, to be sure, it 
 never occurred to her in that light. She 
 had not learned to have much sympathy 
 with plain folks. She belonged to a state, 
 moreover, in which the legislators had 
 failed to appreciate any advantage to be de- 
 rived from the employment of more ma- 
 tured women as teachers. 
 
 Public schools are not philanthropic in- 
 , stitutions to provide support for high school 
 misses in preference to more experienced 
 teachers, even though married. The wom- 
 an, and especially the mother, of experience 
 
 ;
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 33 
 
 would have given plain little Katie one of 
 those caressing words. 
 
 What if her hair was straw colored, with 
 face to match, and the two little braided 
 tails of hair were tied with shoestrings? 
 Her heart was just as tender. The fact that 
 there was no word for her gave her a most 
 important lesson before the teacher had 
 hung up the reading chart. She saw the 
 value of beauty and pretty clothes, and 
 learned at five what she would still believe 
 at fifty, that beauty in a woman is, in prac- 
 tice, valued at more than the truest of 
 hearts. The words "proud and stylish" 
 were unknown to her, but she recognized 
 their meaning, and was a ready devotee at 
 their shrine. 
 
 Ruth had answered the teacher with dim- 
 pling smiles and a sweet "Yes, ma'am," and 
 when the bell called the children together, 
 the teacher looked for a seat for her. The 
 only vacant one was found beside the little 
 Russian girl. 
 
 She hesitated a moment and then said: 
 
 3
 
 I 
 
 34 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 "Well, my dear, I guess you will have to 
 sit here for the present." She did not say: 
 
 "I am sorry that such a sweet little 
 darling must sit by that homely little thing 
 in her Dutch blue apron and calf-skin shoes, 
 but we will move you as soon as possible." 
 
 She did not say it, but each little girl un- 
 derstood it perfectly, and Ruth drew her 
 apron very close to herself and tried by her 
 manner of superiority to impress upon Ka- 
 tie that the difference between them was 
 great. And Katie unhesitatingly believed 
 her. 
 
 When the work of the morning began, 
 and the teacher was trying to impress, first 
 the script form of course it was very im- 
 portant to have the script form first and 
 then the printed form of C A T, Ruth was 
 comparing her finger nails with those of 
 Katie. 
 
 Auntie May had often told her that she 
 would be an aristocrat because her nails 
 were so beautifully shaped, and she had re- 
 solved that she would never again play at
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 35 
 
 making mud pies, for it just spoiled them. 
 She saw that Katie's were short and square, 
 and of course Katie could never be an 
 aristocrat. 
 
 Katie's eyes were filled with admiration 
 and interest, not for the picture cat, nor its 
 script representative, but for the wonderful 
 embroidery on Ruth's apron. This evident 
 admiration entirely thawed out Ruth's in- 
 tended hauteur, and she poked out one 
 brown slipper and whispered: 
 "Auntie May gave them to me." 
 One after another she displayed the arti- 
 cles of her finery for Katie's admiration, and 
 when each had elicited as much as it could, 
 she drew up a corner of her dress just to 
 show the edge of a dainty embroidered 
 skirt to convince Katie that she was the 
 same all the way through. When the lesson 
 was finished these children had but a dim 
 idea of it; not that they were dull, nor that 
 the gushing girl teacher had not illustrated 
 the subject to its fullest, but that the subject 
 of clothes had so completely absorbed their
 
 36 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 attention that there was room for nothing 
 else. 
 
 When Katie's admiration began to wane, 
 Ruth drew herself together again with the 
 sudden recollection that she had been too 
 familiar. As soon as school was out, she 
 found Beatrice, the banker's little daughter, 
 and walked home with her. Katie was 
 just behind them, but of course she could 
 not walk with them, she was so common. 
 
 Ruth had really felt greatly attracted 
 toward the admiring child, but Auntie May 
 had told her mamma that Ruth ought not 
 to be allowed to associate with common 
 children if she expected her to grow up ex- 
 clusive. Mamma had answered that she 
 supposed she ought to be satisfied if her 
 child grew up good. But to be sure, you 
 could not help but expect something more 
 from such a child. 
 
 So she knew that there were things ex- 
 pected of her, and she did not intend to ruin 
 her prospects by walking with such a com- 
 mon companion as Katie Kabrinski.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 37 
 
 On their way home Beatrice brought 
 from her pocket a new shining five cent 
 piece that had been given her if she would 
 be a good child and not "fuss" about going 
 to school. A paper bag of chocolate creams 
 was soon bought, and this was a strong ce- 
 ment to the friendship thus formed. 
 
 "O, I just love chocolate creams; don't 
 you?" was the way Ruth showed her appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 "O, not very much; my papa brings me 
 so many I'm most tired to death of them. 
 We don't have hardly anything but candies 
 and such things at our house." 
 
 "Neither do we," replied Ruth, spurred 
 on not to be outdone by Beatrice in the 
 matter of ennui as regarded all delicacies; 
 "I have candy and nuts and oranges and 
 such things almost every day. O, we have 
 pie, too; I think pie is just splendid, don't 
 you?" 
 
 "O, some kinds. If it's mince with lots 
 of raisins or lemon pie with frosting. I
 
 38 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 won't eat any other kind. I tell you, I'm 
 just mad if mamma has any other kind." 
 
 "So am I. I always have two pieces." 
 
 Now, Beatrice did not state the exact 
 truth in this conversation, but Ruth came 
 much farther from it, for the parsonage 
 pocket-book did not afford pie and candy 
 on all occasions. But Ruth would have 
 been been greatly mortified if Beatrice had 
 known the exact truth in regard to that 
 matter. 
 
 Beatrice did not have tapering fingers 
 and almond shaped nails like hers, but her 
 father was the richest man in the town, and 
 she had grown-up sisters who had lovely 
 dresses and drove in an elegant carriage 
 and went to dances, and Ruth thought that 
 probably they had all the chocolate creams 
 that they could eat. From her lips Beatrice 
 should never get a confession that choco- 
 late creams were a rarity at the parsonage. 
 
 By the time the little stomach was well 
 under headway doing its duty for the 
 creams, her appetite for the mashed pota-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 39 
 
 toes and beef steak that her mother set be- 
 fore her for her dinner was anything but 
 keen, and she waited in pouting silence for 
 the dessert. 
 
 Rice pudding, and not a single raisin in 
 it! However, the cream and sugar were 
 some inducement, and she ate her share. 
 
 "Why, Ruth, aren't you going to eat any- 
 thing but pudding for your dinner?" asked 
 anxious mamma. 
 
 "O, I don't care for such plain food." 
 And Ruth thought she was growing really 
 aristocratic. 
 
 Beatrice with her five cents was now 
 Ruth's constant companion from school. 
 The little bag of candy was regularly con- 
 sumed, and the mother wondered why Ruth 
 had so little appetite for her dinner, and 
 seemed not to sleep well. Finally she grew 
 peevish and her breath was fetid, and the 
 mother was sure that she had worms. 
 
 They kept her home from school for 
 three days and fed her on turpentine and 
 sugar; then she was very much better.
 
 40 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 There really was nothing like turpentine 
 for worms! 
 
 But Ruth was afraid that some one would 
 get her seat beside Beatrice for as soon 
 as possible the teacher had changed her 
 seat from the one beside Katie and she 
 wanted to get back to school. She had 
 apparently forgotten now that she had ever 
 known Katie, and was careful not to give 
 her so much as a glance of recognition if 
 she passed. 
 
 Auntie May had told her that she must 
 be exclusive, and of course that meant that 
 she must not speak to any one who was 
 not aristocratic. She and Beatrice were 
 the most aristocratic girls in school, and 
 the teacher knew it; for did she not treat 
 them differently from the other girls? 
 
 If they did not know, when asked, what 
 she had been drilling the children on, per- 
 haps for days, she very carefully went over 
 the work again. If there were any small 
 favors or privileges they always got the lion's 
 share. They told each other that they had
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 41 
 
 the privilege of passing the drawing books 
 and being monitor on the stairs oftener than 
 any one else. The teacher generally asked 
 them for the answers to the easiest ques- 
 tions and gave them the easiest words to 
 spell. 
 
 Some of the hateful, jealous girls said 
 that they were pets. Of course they were ! 
 Why shouldn't they be? 
 
 Before the first year was done they came 
 to expect special consideration as a matter 
 of course, and to skim over the hard places. 
 Application was a process that their little 
 intellects knew nothing about, for their 
 education was conducted on the plan of 
 throwing facts at them until they stuck, or 
 until a part of them stuck. Ruth sat 
 through that whole first year, a target for 
 the little homeopathic pellets of human 
 knowledge that the teacher persistently 
 threw at her. 
 
 Now, it takes no intellectual force to 
 make a target of one's self in this way, and 
 when the fact that c-a-t spells cat had been
 
 42 
 
 repeated often enough the child's intellect 
 comprehended it. Not as a built-up thing, 
 made of parts that she could take apart 
 and put together again in other forms and 
 with other sounds, but as a thing that she 
 grasped as a whole, and which it required 
 no more intellect to comprehend than a 
 parrot would need to learn items much less 
 simple. 
 
 At the end of nine months of school con- 
 finement she could tell you all the words 
 in a small primer words that had been per- 
 sistently thrown at her in the same way. 
 
 Then there was that beautiful chart in 
 number work. That teacher had spent 
 hours in pasting on card-board first one 
 apple, trying to get into those young and 
 undeveloped minds the idea of "one thing." 
 It was one large, red, luscious apple, such 
 as would make the mouths of any young 
 animal water with desire for it. 
 
 The beauty and lusciousness of it would 
 help to transfer the idea of what "one thing" 
 alone and unassisted might look like.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 43 
 
 When the conscience of the teacher was 
 satisfied that every child in the room could 
 fully comprehend and appreciate the fact of 
 "one thing," she turned a leaf and disclosed 
 two objects. Now there were two groups 
 of two objects two girls and two plums, 
 and the drill began in earnest. 
 
 "If one plum is taken from two plums, 
 how many plums will remain? If one girl 
 and one girl stand together, how many girls 
 will there be? If two plums are divided be- 
 tween two little girls, how many plums will 
 each little girl have?" 
 
 That teacher would not have allowed one 
 of those children to use the fingers; that 
 was tabooed from the childish study of 
 arithmetic long ago; but she substituted 
 the plums and dolls for the fingers and im- 
 agined that she was using a method far dif- 
 ferent from the old-fashioned one. 
 
 The object in view when the departure 
 from the use of the fingers was first made 
 was to force the child, as soon as possible, 
 into abstract thinking, but the abuse of the
 
 44 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 object work substituted has made the condi- 
 tions in teaching number work very sim- 
 ilar to those before the reform. 
 
 Now Ruth could have told her teacher 
 very quickly that if mamma gave her two 
 pennies, and papa gave her two pennies, 
 she would have four pennies. Moreover 
 she could have told her that it would take 
 one more penny, that she had coaxed broth- 
 er Dodd for in vain, to make enough pen- 
 nies to buy a bag of peanuts. 
 
 She had not learned at that time that pea- 
 nuts were vulgar. At ten she would insist 
 that she had never tasted a peanut. 
 
 Ruth had not been "born long" on fig- 
 ures, yet her mother could have told you 
 that while she still lisped in baby notes she 
 knew two objects when she saw them. 
 
 O, deluded school teachers, do you think 
 a child knows nothing when it comes to 
 you? Ask any fond mother that question 
 and you will soon find out about it. 
 
 For three months the young woman hung 
 that chart before those little human beings,
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 45 
 
 and with a hundred times the persistency of 
 Mr. Smith's rat trainer she tried to impress 
 upon them what the component parts of 
 four were a thing they already knew. 
 
 The rat trainer could teach a common rat 
 to fire a cannon or walk a rope in two 
 weeks, yet these little intelligent beings 
 could not learn the component parts of 
 numbers under ten under three months. 
 
 What difference did it make that they 
 well knew how many pennies in a nickel? 
 That would not help the teacher out when 
 the superintendent came in to inspect re- 
 sults. Now she could call on that pretty 
 little Ruth, and have her say in her sweetest 
 tones, 
 
 "Two dollies and two dollies will make 
 four dollies." 
 
 She must have something to make a defi- 
 nite showing with, and so term after term 
 these little ones are drilled and drilled until 
 their knowledge is all done up in little 
 packages, labeled and pigeon-holed so as to 
 be produced on demand.
 
 46 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 It was by this kind of work that the abil- 
 ity of Ruth's teacher was to be judged. 
 Her retention or promotion would depend 
 probably to a great extent on what the su- 
 perintendent said of her work, and her first 
 object must be to drill the class so as to 
 make a ready and attractive display of what 
 the children knew. 
 
 When our interests are dependent on do- 
 ing work in a certain manner, it takes the 
 spirit of a martyr to sacrifice outward suc- 
 cess to inward convictions. 
 
 Ruth's teacher was not troubled in soul 
 with inward convictions. She was content 
 to rest upon the superiority of those above 
 her in authority, and felt no responsibility 
 for any method whatsoever that she was ex- 
 pected to use. They were given to her 
 ready-made, and she put them on like any 
 other garment, or used them as she would 
 text books. 
 
 Were the little intellects under her care 
 developing? Were they being used in the 
 daily school room work? She did not know.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 47 
 
 She did not care a great deal. Much less 
 did she care what those same little minds 
 were doing on the play-ground. 
 
 Certain it was that they were constantly 
 receiving more food for thought than un- 
 der the teacher's direction where they 
 worked for weeks at what most of them 
 could have learned in a vastly shorter time. 
 
 To make the child think consciously was 
 the very last result contemplated. Ruth 
 was capable of thinking. She could go 
 through a regular logical process when she 
 was managing her small affairs at home; 
 but when she came to school nothing was 
 expected of her, not even to remember. 
 She was simply drilled until she could not 
 help remembering. 
 
 Any pedagogue imbued with the idea of 
 the wonders of our new education would 
 tell you that she was infinitely more fortu- 
 nate than her grandmother, who learned 
 her letters at the end of her mother's knit- 
 ting needle, and was expected to learn by 
 herself all that she possibly could.
 
 48 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Far from it. Whatever the other faults 
 of her education, that grandmother was 
 compelled to think according to her ca- 
 pacity. 
 
 What a boon it would have been to Ruth, 
 with her delicate, modern stomach and her 
 sensitive American nerves, to have reveled 
 in fresh air and sunshine for a large part 
 of her time, as the A, B, C scholars of her 
 grandmother's time did, instead of sitting 
 under this constant fire of facts. 
 
 Those were the days when that grand- 
 mother was laying up a store of nerve and 
 muscle for the days of her necessity. 
 
 Every romp through the woods; every 
 breath of pure air that she drew as she 
 filled her apron with dandelions or scaled 
 the lichens from the old fence rails; every 
 ray of sunshine that browned her cheek 
 and sprinkled freckles on her nose, were 
 strengthening the fibre of her small body, 
 and would in the days of her womanhood 
 be of infinitely more value to her than all 
 the drill of that primary room.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 49 
 
 But Ruth appeared to enjoy the school 
 work. 
 
 O, yes, she adored the young teacher who 
 dressed so prettily and entertained them so 
 nicely in the intermissions between the sea- 
 sons of drilling. 
 
 But that is no criterion as to the useful- 
 ness of a teacher. The teacher most pop- 
 ular with the pupils is quite as often as 
 otherwise the teacher who has the least 
 power to make them think. Because she 
 can succeed in making them obtain facts 
 without any conscious effort on their part, 
 she is a delightful being to the child; but 
 it no more represents development than 
 teaching a parrot the same thing. 
 
 But Ruth's mother would never have be- 
 lieved that the teacher who could so attract 
 Ruth to school was anything but perfect. 
 
 What a delight to see Ruth start to school 
 each morning eagerly, with smiling face. 
 
 What a contrast to the judge's daughter, 
 whose mother thought she was so much 
 more competent than the trained teacher,
 
 50 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 who called her little daughter to come to 
 her room each morning for her lessons. 
 What flouts and pouts and rebellion, as 
 much as were allowable, were heard and 
 seen. 
 
 But that same firm "You must" was re- 
 peated each morning until the child sub- 
 mitted to the inevitable, not because she 
 loved it, but because a higher power willed 
 it. 
 
 "Spare the rod and spoil the child" 
 sounds very harsh to modern ears, but 
 there is a germ of truth in it that will en- 
 dure while childhood lasts. 
 
 How was it at the end of the first year 
 with the judge's daughter and the minister's 
 daughter? 
 
 The school girl could read- anything in 
 her primer at sight; beyond that primer 
 she knew not one word. 
 
 The mother-taught child read with avid- 
 ity from a hundred books of childish inter- 
 est. 
 
 Was there then such a difference in the
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 51 
 
 children? Not at all. One was taught to 
 think; the other was taught to repeat. 
 
 The alphabet and multiplication tables 
 may be the foundations of all knowledge, 
 but capacity for thinking is the foundation 
 of all wisdom. 
 
 But if the children were not compelled to 
 think during school hours, certain it is that 
 at the times when they were free to asso- 
 ciate with the children of all grades their 
 minds were much more active, their lessons 
 more graphic, and their impressions far 
 more lasting. 
 
 What fun it was to sit on the front steps 
 munching their candies and watching those 
 common girls romping. 
 
 There was a great deal of whispering and 
 giggling as Beatrice would point to some 
 faded dress and say, 
 
 "Isn't that a beauty! I would like to 
 wear it to the club dance." 
 
 "O, yes, I would like to be married in 
 it."
 
 52 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "And have your hair tied with a shoe- 
 string." 
 
 "O, yes, and blue stockings." 
 
 "O, dear, O, dear!" 
 
 They would have to stifle their parox- 
 ysms of laughter in their handkerchiefs. 
 
 Then the high school girls would come 
 down and talk to them. These girls had 
 gone through many of the same experiences 
 that were in prospect for these children, but 
 they belonged to families where money was 
 not abundant enough to provide the clothes 
 necessary to take the position in school life 
 their desires dictated. They looked upon 
 beauty and wealth as the only really de- 
 sirable things in life, and they showed these 
 two children, by their constant attention 
 and admiration, that they considered them 
 superior to the common children. 
 
 Whenever they met them they had to 
 say, 
 
 "O, Ruth, what lovely curls," or "What 
 a stunning complexion you have," or
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 53 
 
 "Say, Beatrice, do your sisters belong to 
 the Two-Step Club?" 
 
 "Of course they do," Beatrice would say. 
 
 "Do they walk, or do their fellows come 
 to take them in a carriage?" 
 
 Beatrice was not at all sure, but she did 
 not allow that to influence her much. 
 
 "Why, in a carriage, of course." 
 
 "Well, say, Beatrice, do their fellows 
 come to see them in the morning or in 
 the evening?" 
 
 She was not quite clear which ought to 
 be the proper time; so she tossed her head 
 and said: 
 
 "The idea!" 
 
 So the girls continued to quiz her in re- 
 gard to the lives of those sisters until she 
 was observant of all their movements, and 
 kept herself as well informed as possible, 
 so as to excite the admiration and envy of 
 these school girls. 
 
 To Ruth the life of these elder sisters was 
 fairy land. She began to feel a scorn for 
 the simple life at the parsonage, and de-
 
 54 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 termined to go and live with Auntie May 
 just as soon as she was old enough. 
 
 Ruth and Beatrice did not spend their 
 time on the play-ground in romping games. 
 Ruth was afraid of spoiling her clothes or 
 her complexion, and Beatrice very much 
 preferred the talks on the stairway, or in the 
 groups and knots of the larger girls, where 
 such conversations were the common thing. 
 
 "I saw Mrs. S out riding yesterday 
 
 and she had a lovely dress with a parasol to 
 match. She don't have any young ones 
 hanging around her." 
 
 "Well, I guess she don't. She's too smart 
 for that." 
 
 "Just look at Mamie T . She's had 
 
 two since she has been married, and she 
 can't go to a dance or anywhere else." 
 
 "Well, she never did know anything. I 
 tell you, if her father hadn't had the stuff, 
 he'd never have married her." 
 
 Then there were giggles and whispered 
 sentences. When Ruth and Beatrice want- 
 ed to know what was said, they were made
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 55 
 
 to give solemn promises "never to tell," and 
 the whispered sentences were passed on. 
 There was a shout of amusement at the puz- 
 zled look that came into the young faces, 
 and explanations were given that called 
 forth wondering "Oh, my's" from the chil- 
 dren. But these were given only after re- 
 peated promises "never to tell their 
 mothers." In this way it was that there 
 came to those children their first knowledge 
 of the most vital principle in human exist- 
 ence, accompanied by suggestions that were 
 vulgar and coarse. Their very first impres- 
 sions, that should have been as delicate as a 
 mother could make them, and that should 
 have been presented to them free from any 
 associations that would tend to vitiate their 
 sentiments, were rendered distorted and un- 
 true. 
 
 When Beatrice's sister gave her the beau- 
 tiful little poem to read beginning, 
 
 "Have you heard of the valley of BABY LAND, 
 The realm where the dear little darlings stay; 
 Till the kind storks go, as all men know, 
 And O, so tenderly bear them away?"
 
 56 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 she brought it over for Ruth to read, and 
 they giggled for a whole hour over it. 
 
 It was about this time that a little new 
 comer was expected at the parsonage, and 
 the mother remarked to the father one day, 
 "I dread Ruth's questions when the baby 
 comes. She was troublesome enough last 
 time, and she is two years older now. I 
 can't bear to tell her an untruth, and she is 
 so young I hate to spoil her beautiful il- 
 lusions." 
 
 "Oh, don't worry over that. Such mat- 
 ters regulate themselves," the father an- 
 swered, and he felt that he had said a very 
 wise thing. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose they do. I know that 
 she is a peculiarly pure minded child. I 
 never knew her to say a naughty word but 
 once, and that was almost two years' ago. I 
 reproved her very severely, and told her 
 never to say such a thing to any one again, 
 and I never knew her to repeat it or say 
 anything like it." 
 
 "That is the right way. Just nip such
 
 DODO'S SISTER. 57 
 
 things in the bud and they will come out all 
 right." 
 
 But Ruth's mother was not annoyed with 
 a single question. The baby was no surprise 
 to her. She expected it the night that her 
 mother suggested that she go over and stay 
 with Beatrice. 
 
 Beatrice had told her many times that it 
 was a shame that they had to have so many 
 babies at their house just because they were 
 minister's folks. Just as likely as not she 
 would have to stay in and rock the baby 
 now instead of going walking after school. 
 
 Ruth felt that this was all true and that 
 it was an imposition on her. She walked 
 into the house in the morning with con- 
 scious dignity, prepared to show her disap- 
 proval of the whole affair if her fears should 
 be realized. 
 
 When she came in her father said: 
 
 "Ruth, God sent you another brother last 
 night. Don't you want to come in and see 
 him?"
 
 58 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "I don't care to," Ruth answered, very 
 stiffly, and went to hang up her wraps. 
 
 Realizing that such conduct would hurt 
 her mother the father said: "You had better 
 go in and see him and speak to mamma. 
 She will want to know that you have come." 
 
 Ruth walked in very grandly, and with- 
 out deigning to notice the little white bun- 
 dle, said: 
 
 "I have come back, mamma." 
 
 "Yes, dear. Did you know you had a 
 new brother? Here he is. Isn't he sweet?" 
 
 Ruth did not answer. She asked no ques- 
 tions, and showed no surprise. 
 
 Her mother was astonished, and thought 
 her a remarkably sweet child. She had 
 never heard her speak on any of the sub- 
 jects that are usually tabooed between 
 mother and child, and for that reason she 
 supposed the child had no thoughts on those 
 subjects. She had congratulated herself at 
 the last W. C. T. U. meeting, when the wo- 
 man sent by the Union was discoursing on
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 59 
 
 the subject of social purity, and in the 
 course of her remarks said: 
 
 "If women would recognize this element 
 in their girls as well as in their boys, we 
 could work so much more intelligently." 
 
 In her girl she would have nothing of the 
 kind to deal with. Of course when the 
 proper age should come she would impress 
 it upon her that elements of that nature 
 were extremely degrading. At present it 
 was entirely unnecessary to be concerned 
 about the matter at all, for she was sure 
 that Ruth had never had her attention called 
 to any such matters, for the child never 
 spoke of them. The mother never dreamed 
 that long before, when she had sharply told 
 Ruth never to mention the subject again to 
 any one, she had sealed the child's mouth 
 to her, and kept her from the very source 
 from which her information should have 
 come. 
 
 It is a mistaken idea that a mother knows 
 her child better than any one else. She 
 does not, unless she has that exceedingly
 
 60 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 rare faculty of being able to govern and 
 at the same time to keep the child's heart 
 open to her. 
 
 The fear of censure, the dread of long 
 drawn sermons, have kept many children 
 from telling the mother the very things 
 which they have the most need of knowing. 
 
 Ruth's mother considered it her duty to 
 correct her children's wrong-doing by long, 
 grave sermons that were referred to after 
 the misdemeanor, until she thought the 
 child was properly impressed. 
 
 Very early in her association with Bea- 
 trice, Ruth had learned that discretion in 
 these matters was far more comfortable 
 than open confidence. 
 
 With considerable interest she had asked 
 her father if he knew that Johnny Jones' 
 father was a miser. 
 
 "Who says he is a miser?" 
 
 "Oh, Beatrice; and she told him so to- 
 day." 
 
 "Told him so? Why did she do that?"
 
 DODiyS SISTER. 61 
 
 "Oh, 'cause he stuck his foot in her tri- 
 cycle." 
 
 "Were you with her?" Ruth's mother 
 asked her. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't say anything. I only stuck 
 my tongue out at him." The rebuke that 
 followed this confession was as severe as 
 if to stick out one's tongue were the first 
 step in a career of vice, and Ruth drew be- 
 tween herself and her parents another 
 screen. It was this undue severity in small 
 offenses that satisfied the mother that she 
 was doing her whole duty by her children, 
 while graver things went by unnoticed. 
 
 In the hot-house of the public schools, 
 where her knowledge was being forced in 
 many ways beyond her childish years, 
 where the sweetness and innocency of her 
 very tender age were being colored and dis- 
 torted by contact with ideas and feelings far 
 beyond her, she needed the closest contact 
 with a wise mother heart.
 
 62 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 But the mother was entirely ignorant of 
 these conditions, and one of the first lessons 
 that Ruth learned was to conceal from her 
 the very things in which she most needed 
 her advice. 
 
 Mothers have been trained for genera- 
 tions to consider any interest in the greatest 
 question in nature on the part of the woman 
 as indicative of the woman's eternal dis- 
 grace. 
 
 If this is seen in a girl, they say that it 
 signifies a low nature, and it is one of the 
 hardest things to make a mother believe. If 
 they see it in a son, they are grieved, to be 
 sure, but comfort themselves with the 
 thought that it is very much like boys. No 
 matter how low or foolish a thing a boy 
 may do, he hears that "it is just like a boy," 
 and he is very soon convinced that nothing 
 much is expected of him in this regard. 
 
 It is this difference in the ideal that is set 
 before the girl and the boy during their 
 years of development that is one of the most 
 potent factors in their final difference of
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 63 
 
 moral perception. Occasionally there has 
 been a mother wise enough to withhold her 
 rebuke or instruction until some other time 
 than the moment of confidence, and has dis- 
 covered startling facts of what her little girl 
 has been learning at school. 
 
 She has been able perhaps by careful ex- 
 planations, by revealing as much of the 
 truth as she has deemed wise, to instruct her 
 child in such a manner that the pernicious 
 influence of contact with the minds that in- 
 terpret nature basely has failed to make any 
 lasting impression. Most mothers, like 
 most teachers, are blind, deaf and dumb to 
 the verbal commerce of the recess. 
 
 Ignorance on the part of the mother, a 
 lack of a right feeling of responsibility (to- 
 gether with a foolish modesty) on the part 
 of the teacher was gradually deforming the 
 moral constitution of this child. 
 
 She had now reached an age beyond 
 childish things. Her companions were no 
 longer playmates. They were classed to- 
 gether as distinctly as were the young men
 
 64 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 and women ten years their seniors. Ruth 
 and Beatrice had a clique of their own, and 
 any other little girl not considered worthy 
 of their recognition they could cut with all 
 the hauteur of a hardened society dame. 
 
 They measured a girl by her clothes, by 
 her artificial airs, by the way she curled 
 her hair, by her style and by her desire to 
 have "regular company." Her grandmoth- 
 er and vulgar little girls might talk about 
 beaux, but that was very far below them. 
 They had "regular company." , 
 
 Ruth's curls were patted and petted with 
 as much solicitude as they would have re- 
 ceived from the most aspiring young society 
 lady. 
 
 It was at this time that Ruth's father 
 moved into the country. When it was an- 
 nounced at the supper table that the next 
 year the family would spend with Grandpa 
 Stebbin, the tears came to Ruth's eyes, and 
 her heart sunk with as great a sense of 
 misery as it did in after years over greater 
 sorrows.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 65 
 
 "Why, just think, Ruth, you can have all 
 the golden-rod that you can wear now. I 
 wouldn't feel so badly. Mamma remembers 
 such delightful times when she was a little 
 girl on the farm. You can't have Beatrice, 
 of course, but cousin Katie is there. She is 
 a sweet little girl." 
 
 But it was all in vain. She went from 
 the table to her own little room and cried 
 until there were no tears left, and only 
 broken sobs told of her grief. 
 
 She could not have told that wild flowers 
 were only dear to her when she wore them 
 in the belt of her white dress, and people 
 stopped her to say: 
 
 "Well, I don't know which is prettiest, the 
 flowers or the sweet little face." 
 
 The fresh air was more liable to spoil her 
 complexion than to do anything else, and 
 as for cousin Katie, she knew she would 
 be a horrid, pokey, countrified thing. 
 
 What were woods, if her set couldn't have 
 a picnic in them? Or a coasting hill with a
 
 66 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 lot of country boys that never knew how to 
 be nice to a girl? 
 
 And the sobs would begin again. 
 
 She did not go to see Beatrice for several 
 days, and then she suffered agonies of mor- 
 tification to have to tell her that they were 
 going to live in the country. 
 
 Beatrice poured out all the sympathy that 
 she could command, and finally suggested 
 that she write to Auntie May, and see if she 
 could not help her. 
 
 The childish letter of woe brought a ready 
 response, and Mr. Weaver's sister again 
 urged that Ruth be allowed to come and 
 stay with her, through the winter at least. 
 
 Consent was finally given to this, and 
 Ruth, radiant with joy, left for her winter 
 home in the city. 
 
 .In the school in the city she found a class, 
 or "set," as she called it, that corresponde-1 
 with the one to which she had belonged. 
 Their clothes were more elaborate, they had 
 more money to spend, but their conversa- 
 tion and moral influence were just as
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 67 
 
 pernicious as were those in the smaller 
 school. 
 
 She spent only three months here before 
 the holidays, and returned to pass that week 
 with her parents. 
 
 Only three months; but in that time her 
 fond auntie with solicitous care had kept 
 her mind on dress and fashionable amuse- 
 ments, and had rendered her more than ever 
 devoted to the artificial life that she had be- 
 gun so early. 
 
 In the country she found it hard to be 
 polite to the people she met. The Christ- 
 mas tree and the simple Christmas pleas- 
 ures filled her small soul with disgust; and 
 when one of the assistants called out "Ruth 
 Weaver," and brought her from the tree a 
 little doll dressed by her grandmother's lov- 
 ing hands, she thought it "perfectly dread- 
 ful," and was so glad that none of the girls 
 could know anything about it. 
 
 She looked with disgust at cousin Katie, 
 showing its twin sister with evident pride to 
 her companions. What would Beatrice
 
 68 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 think of it? And she thought of last Christ- 
 mas morning when she had seen Beatrice 
 turning up her nose in scorn at the hand- 
 some doll that had been given her. 
 
 "Just as if she were a baby!" she said. 
 
 At home she did not attempt to conceal 
 from her grandmother the fact that she was 
 far above dolls. 
 
 "I thought you had no doll and that 
 maybe you would like one if you had it. 
 Katie liked hers, didn't she?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course," said Ruth indiffer- 
 ently. Then with fine scorn she said: 
 
 "And papa, do you know that some of 
 those children really thought that Santa 
 Claus put those things on the tree for them? 
 How ridiculous!" 
 
 "It's a very foolish thing," her father 
 answered, "to put such notions into chil- 
 dren's heads. I should like to have been 
 there and told the exact truth to those chil- 
 dren. I wonder that parents do not realize 
 the harm that they do to children in filling 
 their heads with such nonsense."
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 69 
 
 "What harm do they do, William?" the 
 grandmother asked. 
 
 "What harm? Why, mother, I am as- 
 tonished that you ask such a question. They 
 tell an untruth to their children, and not 
 only do the harm that an untruth always 
 does, but they shatter the children's con- 
 fidence in their veracity. When a child dis- 
 covers that its parents have told a falsehood, 
 it can never have the same confidence in 
 them as before. And then there is absolute- 
 ly no use in it. It certainly does the child 
 no good." 
 
 "Why, I think it does a great deal of 
 good. It helps to make Christmas enjoy- 
 able for one thing. I found out a long time 
 ago that of all the theories that I started 
 out with for raising my family, there is only 
 one that has stood the wear and tear, and 
 that is let the children have all the good 
 times they can. As to making them think 
 that we were not to be depended upon, 
 Mary, how was that? Did you ever lay that 
 up against me?"
 
 70 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "Well, no, mother, I don't think that we 
 did. I'm very sure that we children al- 
 ways depended upon your word and father's 
 as though it were law. The little German 
 children always believe in Santa Claus." 
 
 "Oh, well, the Germans are a myth-lov- 
 ing people; very different from us Ameri- 
 cans." 
 
 Grandma Stebbins knew nothing about 
 myth-loving, but she did know that every 
 child that is robbed of its Santa Claus has 
 lost something of real value. 
 
 Why should we sacrifice even the pleas- 
 ures of our little ones to this craze for the 
 realistic? 
 
 The winter went by, the beautiful spring 
 was come again, and Ruth was sent for to 
 spend the remaining time of her father's va- 
 cation in the country. 
 
 Auntie May consoled her in every way 
 she could, and at last promised her that if 
 she would not feel too bad she would send 
 her a piano just as soon as her hands were 
 large enough to reach an octave.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 71 
 
 It was a great trial to leave her beautiful 
 home. She felt that she belonged there; 
 that she had been created for just such a 
 life, and that to have to go into the "horrid 
 country" was an imposition. 
 
 When she found herself sitting beside her 
 little trunk in the small room at Grandpa 
 Stebbins', she opened it and looked at each 
 memento of her school friends with an air 
 of melancholy that might have been be- 
 stowed upon a long lost sister. 
 
 There was the half of a ten cent piece that 
 she and Beatrice had divided as pledges of 
 their eternal friendship. There was a hick- 
 ory nut with a face carved on one side, a 
 memento of their last picnic. There were 
 some dried roses that had been thrown to 
 her at the last school exhibition. There 
 were these and a score of other little treas- 
 ures. 
 
 She looked them all over caressingly, and 
 the sobs came very thick as she looked out 
 of her window down the dusty lonesome
 
 72 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 road. Her grandmother called her at the 
 stairway: 
 
 "The turkeys are coming home, Ruth. 
 Don't you want to go out with baby and 
 me to see them?" 
 
 Ruth went down, not that turkeys had 
 any attraction, but that it was insufferable 
 to remain where she was any longer. 
 
 "Yes, dear," the mother said, "you will 
 like to see the turkeys. Mamma always 
 used to watch for them to come home when 
 she was a little girl." 
 
 She met her grandfather in the yard. 
 
 "What! Crying, little one? Oh, that will 
 never do. You'll spoil those pretty blue 
 eyes. Those were only meant to smile 
 with." That was the first drop of healing on 
 her wounded heart, and it brought the faint 
 ghost of a smile. 
 
 But the turkeys and cows and young 
 lambs and even the playful kittens were of 
 no avail. She had no heart for anything of 
 the kind. She gathered her dress around
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 73 
 
 her, and was in constant fear that it might 
 get soiled. 
 
 The children started off to school the 
 next morning. The grandfather took them 
 over in the big wagon, "until Ruth should 
 get used to the walk." 
 
 "Now you won't be lonesome any more," 
 he said as he unloaded them at the gate. 
 "Here's your little cousin, Katie. She's just 
 the nicest kind of a little girl. Now go get 
 acquainted as fast as you can. She'll soon 
 loosen your little tongue and you'll be the 
 best kind of friends in ten minutes." 
 
 Katie stood bashful and smiling, with a 
 heart full of welcome and kindness for this 
 little city cousin. 
 
 But for Ruth one glance was enough. 
 Be friends in ten minutes, indeed! As if she 
 could ever be friends with a girl who had 
 her hair combed straight back from her 
 forehead, and a gingham apron on, and 
 great heavy shoes! She did not dare to 
 "cut" her as she wanted to, but Katie under-
 
 74 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 stood very distinctly at the first glance that 
 she was regarded as an inferior being. 
 
 "Now take her up to the school, Katie, 
 and let her get acquainted with the teacher 
 and the other girls. Be good to her, for she 
 is a little bit home-sick you know." 
 
 Home-sick ! It was a magic word. Katie 
 had been home-sick once when her mother 
 had left her for a whole week, and she 
 knew the full meaning of that dreadful 
 malady. So it was with a heart full of sym- 
 pathy that she walked with Ruth up to the 
 school house, and in her simple, child-like 
 way, told the teacher who she was. Ruth 
 wrote to Beatrice that that introduction was 
 just killing. When the children were seat- 
 ed, Ruth had an opportunity to study the 
 teacher in her accustomed analytic way. 
 The result was certainly shocking to her. 
 
 She wrote to Beatrice that the teacher 
 was a regular Irish girl, and her face was 
 full of freckles, and she knew that her com- 
 plexion had never had a bit of care, and O, 
 dear! she wished she could see her waist.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 75 
 
 Well she just knew she didn't have any 
 corset on at all, and her skirt had three 
 ruffles on, just to think! three ruffles! 
 And she had a lace ruffle on her neck, and 
 her hair was braided and twisted in a little 
 wad. Well, it was simply dreadful! "I 
 thought I never could stand it till I wrote 
 to you," she concluded. 
 
 The teacher began to make inquiry as to 
 Ruth's work. She had no trouble with her, 
 for Ruth had a strong suspicion that she 
 knew a great deal more than the teacher. 
 She sent her to the black-board, and as- 
 signed her a task in arithmetic which it 
 seemed that she ought to be able to per- 
 form. Ruth looked at it blankly. 
 
 "Don't you know how to do that work?" 
 
 "No, ma'am." 
 
 "What have you done in arithmetic?" 
 
 "We have had mostly number work." 
 
 "Oh, number work. What did you do in 
 number work?" 
 
 "We could add and subtract and multiply
 
 76 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 and divide anything without the slate or 
 black-board." 
 
 Ruth said this with all the dignity that she 
 could command. It was ridiculous to have 
 those country gawks looking at her as if 
 she didn't know anything when she had al- 
 ways been one of the best in her class. She 
 wished to impress them with the abundance 
 of her knowledge. 
 
 "Well, you may sit down and I will see 
 about your arithmetic later." 
 
 The fact was that Ruth had been drilled 
 from the primary grade up in the combina- 
 tion of numbers, and her knowledge of 
 arithmetical processes was far behind that 
 of the children in the country school. They 
 called this work the mental discipline of the 
 school, and every teacher firmly believed 
 that this constant drill was increasing the 
 capacity of the pupils for systematic think- 
 ing. It stood in striking contrast to the 
 memory work of geography and history. 
 Ruth could add, subtract, multiply and di- 
 vide with remarkable rapidity.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 77 
 
 , 
 There are other machines that can do the 
 
 same. 
 
 If one is planning for a life work as a 
 cashier or book-keeper, no doubt the ma- 
 chine method is convenient, but as a means 
 for developing the thinking powers of a 
 child, it is a failure. No child could ever 
 comprehend the component parts of 49. 
 Even a matured mind can not grasp as a 
 whole any quantity beyond 4. As soon as 
 it exceeds this, it must be separated into its 
 parts. 
 
 Ruth had learned that six fives make thir- 
 ty, but that had involved little reasoning 
 power. She had learned the component 
 parts of every number under 100, and of 
 some far beyond it, and she could have gone 
 on indefinitely. 
 
 But she had merely learned it: learned 
 it just as she learned the facts of geography. 
 It was largely memory work after all. Some 
 children can perform this work more quick- 
 ly than others because they have a readier 
 memory for facts.
 
 78 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 PURE FACT MEMORY IS OFTEN 
 COUNTED FOR MATHEMATI- 
 CAL ABILITY. 
 
 The child that is most apt in number 
 work may lack much of being a good ma- 
 thematician. Mathematics and numbers are 
 no more related than history and dates. 
 
 One is a matter of memory; the other is 
 science. 
 
 To understand why one when reduced 
 makes ten of the next lower order requires 
 some degree of logical thought, and the 
 child that has been drilled merely in number 
 work has not had the right discipline for its 
 comprehension. 
 
 This number work has always held a 
 higher place in the education of children 
 than it deserves, but at present some of our 
 educators are going frantic over it. 
 
 Fortunately for Ruth, the teacher had 
 patience and tact, and though the scornful 
 little nose was in the air at the beginning of 
 the lessons, she was soon working dili-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 79 
 
 gently, and for the first time in her life im- 
 pressed with the idea that she was person- 
 ally responsible for learning the thing as- 
 signed her. She was getting real mental 
 development in those months as she came 
 in contact with a teacher who had the rare 
 faculty of teaching children. 
 
 It was a revelation to Ruth that there 
 could be anything of worth in a woman who 
 had an evident scorn for "style" and who 
 forgot her complexion to such an extent 
 that she would stand in the sunshine and 
 play "anti-over" with the children. 
 
 It is our misfortune that the law of sup- 
 ply and demand that governs the trade mar- 
 kets does not, and can not, give us enough 
 natural teachers; teachers that like the 
 poets are born and not made. This young 
 woman did not get this faculty for putting 
 herself in sympathy with the various na- 
 tures of the children under her charge from 
 any institute or Normal School, although 
 she had some knowledge of their methods. 
 The Institutions of Method may multiply
 
 80 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 themselves in vain in their efforts to mould 
 into true teachers the greater part of the 
 clay that comes into their hands. We must 
 take what we can get to fill the vacant 
 places, but certain it is, there is not enough 
 material to go round. 
 
 Ruth found on the play ground, as well 
 as in the school room, a new delight in free, 
 unaffected natures. After the first painfully 
 embarrassing days were past, when Ruth 
 stood in silent disdain of these uncultured 
 children, and they somewhat in awe of her, 
 when she had not a confidant to whom she 
 could ridicule them, and she was compelled 
 to be friends at last, her bright blue eyes 
 and golden curls opened the way for her 
 into each boyish heart. 
 
 A bunch of the first violets, or a young 
 robin that had been captured on its first 
 excursion from its nest, or the ripest, red- 
 dest strawberries, were brought and shyly 
 offered to her. 
 
 Katie was delighted with every attention 
 that was given to her pretty cousin. Her
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 81 
 
 own nature was steeped in that loveliness 
 that includes all humanity in its affection. 
 
 When she grew to womanhood they 
 called her "motherly." 
 
 But while those little country boys liked 
 her, not one of them would give his pet 
 squirrel to see her smile. 
 
 By and by Ruth began to forget that there 
 was so much of a difference in their social 
 standing. As the out-door sport began to 
 develop a latent power for enjoyment, she 
 would for long hours completely forget to 
 be "stylish," and actually learned to scream 
 with real girlish delight. 
 
 It was in the fall that Auntie May came 
 into the country to visit her brother's fami- 
 ly. She confessed herself shocked to see 
 Ruth. "Who ever could have believed that 
 a child could change so? I always thought 
 her a wonderfully stylish child. She had 
 such an air. Now she moves along just like 
 any common child." 
 
 Grandma Stebbins did not like this talk
 
 82 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 before Ruth. It had a false ring to her 
 honest ears. 
 
 "We think the child has improved very 
 much in the country. She is surely health- 
 ier." 
 
 Auntie May had little interest in a ques- 
 tion of so small importance as a child's 
 health, and she gave little heed to grandma's 
 remark. "Can it be possible that that is 
 Ruth!" 
 
 And Auntie May held up her hands as 
 she heard a scream, and saw Ruth mount- 
 ing high up in the branches of the locust, 
 as her big cousin ran under the swing. 
 
 "When she was with me I never knew her 
 to do anything so rude. She was such a lady. 
 I hoped, when I came out here, to get her 
 started in music, but of course she will have 
 to wait now until the folks move. She can't 
 practice on that old organ. I am going to 
 send her my piano. I expect to have a new 
 one." 
 
 "Has Ruth any gift for music?" grandma 
 inquired.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 83 
 
 "One can't tell how much she may have; 
 but we'll have her practice faithfully for a 
 few years, and we will find out. One don't 
 require much gift if one is diligent." 
 
 In accordance with Auntie May's pro- 
 gram, one of the first things after the family 
 were settled in the city again was to hunt a 
 music teacher, and Ruth was set to do tread- 
 mill service at the piano. 
 
 The morning hours were always too full 
 for practice, and the time that Ruth prom- 
 ised faithfully to allot to the exercise was 
 just after school, from four o'clock to five. 
 From day to day she drummed away at this 
 hour. Evidently no spark of the divine fire 
 had lodged in her soul, but the finger exer- 
 cises, the scales and amusements were de- 
 votedly gone over and over until every 
 member of the household fairly shivered 
 when they heard the first note of the prac- 
 tice hour. 
 
 Parson Weaver in his study would scowl, 
 and feel an intense impulse to order the 
 piano shut ; but the thought that his daugh-
 
 84 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ter, like any other young lady with aspira- 
 tions, must learn to play on the piano, re- 
 strained him. 
 
 The neighbors heard that iterated "trum- 
 trum" until they would have felt delight if 
 a bonfire had taken off all the pianos that 
 were ever made. 
 
 But no matter; it began at ten years of 
 age and lasted regularly until twenty-two, 
 and intermittently for years after, and to no 
 one concerned was it ever anything but 
 "trum-trum." To no one at least except the 
 music teacher who was putting Auntie 
 May's dollars into her pocket. 
 
 In the name of all that is reasonable, why 
 not make the girls mount birds, or train 
 dogs, or write poems, or carve statues, or 
 do some work that requires skill, as well as 
 keep them everlasting pounding on a piano? 
 It would crucify the feelings of those around 
 them less, it would be of just as much value 
 to the girls, it would be less injurious to 
 their health, and would cost far less money. 
 
 Blessed be the memory of the woman who
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 85 
 
 will bring our girls and their foolish parents 
 to a realizing sense of the folly of forcing 
 every girl, irrespective of aptitude, to play 
 the piano. But the piano drumming had 
 just begun. After a few weeks Ruth be- 
 came acquainted with the "stylish" girls in 
 school. 
 
 The afternoon hour was soon devoted to 
 amusement in their company, and the prac- 
 ticing was crowded into the evening. Tired, 
 nervous and cross, she played the finger 
 exercises, the scales and the amusements 
 over and over again. 
 
 Understand, this was done of her own 
 free will; she needed neither compulsion 
 nor urging; and all this not because of the 
 least love of the art, but because it was "the 
 proper thing." 
 
 After a while came recitals, when people 
 came to hear music. Some came because 
 their daughters were going to play; some 
 because they loved music. 
 
 And how many of the twenty young girls 
 who were to entertain them had any trace of
 
 86 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 the divine gift? Certain it is that a great 
 many did not. They played the selections 
 that they had practiced for many weary 
 hours, and the audience sat in polite endur- 
 ance. A sigh of relief and faint applause 
 followed their efforts. 
 
 Their music was not a delight, and they 
 paid for it with time and strength and 
 nerve power that might have equipped them 
 with attainments of real value to them. 
 
 The ennobling influence of music can 
 hardly be over-estimated, but it is good 
 music that ennobles, and not the mechani- 
 cally acquired parody on it. As well set 
 every girl in the country to writing poetry 
 for one hour each day, and compel the rest 
 of us to read it, as to have the air filled with 
 the notes of this universal, indiscriminate 
 and everlasting piano practice. 
 
 There may be some excuse for mistakes 
 in estimating the capacity of a child for 
 some things, but the aptitude for music, 
 or the lack of it, manifests itself in the early 
 years, and to allow a child to expend months
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 87 
 
 of time and stores of nervous energy in a 
 futile effort to become a real musician, 
 what is it if not folly? To force a child to 
 do so, what is it if not cruelty? But Ruth 
 would have sacrificed a great deal for her 
 piano practice. Not to do the thing that the 
 other girls did, or not to dress as they 
 dressed would be everlasting disgrace. 
 
 When the sewing girl came to the parson- 
 age, if the little garments were not fashioned 
 with proper sleeve and collar, there was 
 sure to be a battle. 
 
 "I shall be mortified to death to wear that 
 old fashioned thing. I know Auntie May 
 would think it just dreadful for me to go 
 to school looking as if I came from the 
 country." 
 
 The sewing girl had once interposed with, 
 "Little girls ought to wear what their moth- 
 ers think best. I am sure when I was a 
 little girl I would have thought this a very 
 nice dress to wear to school." 
 
 "No doubt you would," was Ruth's signi- 
 ficant reply, and she drew her mother into
 
 88 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 the next room to have the discussion alone. 
 Now strange it may seem, but the most po- 
 tent argument that decided the mother in 
 Ruth's favor was that effort of the seam- 
 stress to convince Ruth that the dress was 
 good enough for her. All the mother's im- 
 pulses rushed to the child's relief. Who can 
 analyze that mother instinct, that upon the 
 least opposition to the child, lets judgment 
 go to the winds, and arrays all her forces 
 on the side of the child? 
 
 Ruth understood this, and she knew that 
 her mother would yield in time if there were 
 but tears and grief enough. 
 
 And the seamstress knew it, too, and laid 
 aside the disputed piece of goods. 
 
 "The idea, mamma! How I shall look! 
 And she seems to think there is no differ- 
 ence between her and me. Do you want me 
 to look as if I were going to be a sewing 
 girl? Auntie May says I have a place to 
 make in society, and that my clothes ought 
 to have some care. And Beatrice has a 
 lovely new henrietta with lined sleeves. It's
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 89 
 
 just lovely. And I have to wear those lit- 
 tle skimpy sleeves. Oh, dear." Another 
 shower of tears. 
 
 "Why, those will be quite nice. I wouldn't 
 feel so badly about it, dear. If you behave 
 yourself prettily and are a good girl, no 
 one will think any the less of you if your 
 sleeves are not so large." She might just 
 as well have used this argument with a 
 girl of sixteen. Ruth knew better than her 
 mother that that statement was not true 
 with regard to the girls who were her as- 
 sociates. She would not be held in as high 
 esteem. The circumference of her sleeve 
 was a matter of vital importance. Her 
 mother talked to her as if she were merely 
 a normally developed child. As if her 
 thoughts and feelings were those of a child 
 such as she herself had been at ten years, 
 or as was the judge's little daughter who 
 slept with her dollies and rolled a hoop. 
 
 She was far from right. It would have 
 been a crucifixion of her feelings to have 
 been compelled to wear clothes different
 
 90 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 from those of her companions. There were 
 enough girls in the school who still wore 
 gingham aprons, but they were girls whom 
 Ruth felt to be her social inferiors. She 
 felt these things just as keenly as if she had 
 been as matured in body as in mind. There 
 was nothing to her in life to be more de- 
 sired than to be considered as belonging 
 to the "proud and stylish" set, and it was 
 just as real to her as it was to her admired 
 Auntie May. 
 
 The tears and pleading prevailed. 
 
 The mother went back to the sewing- 
 room, and trying to hide any consciousness 
 of having been defeated, said: 
 
 "You may put that piece in the sleeves. 
 I will get a new piece of velvet for the 
 bertha." 
 
 "Very well," was all the seamstress an- 
 swered; but she told the family at home 
 that evening that the importance of that 
 stuck-up little Ruth was something ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 She had the feelings and aspirations of a
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 91 
 
 girl years her senior, and the matter of dress 
 was only one of the ways in which they 
 showed themselves. But this was not the 
 most offensive way. Had her mother seen 
 her on the school ground, even her blinded 
 eyes would have been opened to the fact 
 that there was something vitally wrong in 
 the development of her child. With her 
 own ideas of maidenly propriety, ideas that 
 had been handed down to her from genera- 
 tions of modest women, she would have 
 been shocked at the moral deformity, if she 
 could have realized the real feelings and 
 motives that prompted Ruth and her girl 
 friends in their behavior. 
 
 The girls in gingham aprons could be 
 found playing "Old Pompey is dead," or 
 even "Crack the Whip," but the exclusive 
 set were far beyond that. They arranged 
 themselves in couples, and set out to attract 
 the attention of the boys on the opposite 
 side. They first promenaded the sidewalk, 
 arm in arm, and talked and laughed with all 
 imaginable coquettish airs.
 
 92 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Had the boys been as forward in their 
 development as they were, they would have 
 had less trouble, but fortunately the ball 
 game and the marbles held more attraction 
 for them than girls did. Occasionally one 
 would answer the challenge, and come and 
 talk to them, but their judgment had not 
 developed with their desire for admiration 
 and attention, and they were not at all timid 
 about following the boys into the play- 
 ground, and insisting upon having their at- 
 tention. 
 
 Out of school hours the set had their 
 small parties; not as a company of children, 
 to play "hide and seek" or "pussy wants a 
 corner," and go home at twilight. They 
 went in the evening, each girl waiting at her 
 home until called for by her "regular com- 
 pany." Then at ten or eleven they came 
 home together in the same way. Their 
 games and amusements were highly savored 
 with sentiment and effusiveness. Wherever 
 they happened to be, they collected in little
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 93 
 
 groups, and talked and laughed in painful 
 imitation of eighteen-year-old girls. 
 
 After school hours they went arm in arm, 
 inventing errands to bring them into con- 
 tact with the clerks, who were much more 
 attentive and susceptible than the school 
 boys of their own age ; or they stood in the 
 postoffice and simpered their nonsense in 
 high, strident tones, and posed with affected 
 airs; they rilled in all the vacant time with 
 excessive giggling, or stood with eyes rilled 
 with admiration and envy for every fashion- 
 ably dressed woman who passed; or they 
 would follow the school boys, insisting upon 
 having attention from them. 
 
 Amongst themselves there were the same 
 jealousies that exist amongst older ones. 
 It was deplorable to see little girls with bit- 
 ter feelings toward a companion when she 
 succeeded in attracting an undue amount of 
 attention; and these occasions were more 
 frequent than with older girls, for the boys 
 who were susceptible to these things were 
 much fewer in number than the girls. When
 
 94 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 every device for prolonging their stay had 
 been tried, they reluctantly strolled home. 
 
 All this performance was an outward ex- 
 pression of an inward condition. Were this 
 the worst of this unnatural life, the results 
 are still to be deplored. But there is too 
 often an under-current in the life of these 
 children that is unknown and unsuspected 
 by all except an occasional observing and 
 thoughtful mother. 
 
 WhenRuth's mother first heard, at the W. 
 C. T. U. meeting, that there was a bad con- 
 dition of morals among the children of the 
 public schools, she was surprised that she 
 had never seen nor heard anything of this. 
 Then came the comforting thought that her 
 children knew nothing about it. The lady 
 who spoke had said "amongst some of the 
 children," and of course Ruth did not as- 
 sociate with such. It must be the Polish 
 children of whom these things were true. 
 "It is so unfortunate" she remarked "that 
 our children are compelled to go to school 
 in a mass."
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 95 
 
 It had required some courage on the part 
 of the lady who made the statement to in- 
 troduce the subject. 
 
 She continued that she hoped that the 
 Union would see that it was their duty 
 to do something about the matter. 
 
 "But we don't know anything definitely 
 about it," the president replied. "There have 
 been floating reports of this kind, but there 
 seem to be no certain facts." 
 
 "I do know of certain facts that make the 
 matter clear enough to me." 
 
 "In that case, why do you not go to the 
 principal and tell him?" 
 
 "Well, ladies, now that the question has 
 been asked, I will tell you the whole story. 
 I did go to the principal not long ago. It 
 was not a pleasant task, I assure you. I told 
 him what I believed, and some of the things 
 that had led me to think it. He let me tell 
 the whole thing without a word, but I could 
 plainly see by the expression on his face 
 his opinion of a woman who could ever 
 have such thoughts about children, or who
 
 96 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 could relate them to a man. After I had 
 said all that I considered it my duty to say, 
 he waited a full minute so as to properly im- 
 press me, and then said: 'Well, madam, as 
 you are so convinced of the truth of what 
 you say, I suppose that you are prepared to 
 prove the truth of all these assertions/ 
 
 "I had gone to him with my information 
 because of an overpowering sense of duty. 
 I answered him: 
 
 "'I am not prepared to do anything of 
 the kind. If after I have told you these 
 things you can not go to work and find out 
 the truth of them, I shall feel at least that I 
 have done my duty/ 
 
 "'Do not trouble yourself on that score, 
 madam,' he answered. 'As far as you are 
 responsible for my school, you have cer- 
 tainly done your whole duty/ 
 
 "My husband said, when I came home 
 and told him about it, that it served me 
 right; that I might have minded my own 
 business. 
 
 "I have said nothing about it since, but I
 
 DODO'S SISTER. 97 
 
 live just back of the school house, and I see 
 so much that I felt compelled to say some- 
 thing." 
 
 "Well, what can we do? If the teacher 
 will not listen, shall we go to the board?" 
 
 "Yes, if you are prepared to prove every- 
 thing that you are morally convinced of." 
 
 "Well, shall we go to the parents?" 
 
 "Go to the parents ! Well, I guess not, if 
 you don't expect to be eternally ostracized 
 from their society." 
 
 Then Ruth's mother spoke. 
 
 "Well, you would not care for that. They 
 are a class of society that our Union ought 
 to be interested in, and do the best for, 
 whether they appreciate it or not." 
 
 There was a smile on some of the faces at 
 this speech, and they all realized how diffi- 
 cult it would be to say anything to parents 
 on the subject. 
 
 Without coming to any conclusion, but 
 wishing, as they had wished many times, 
 that there might be some women on the 
 school board who might be approached on
 
 98 
 
 such subjects, and who would feel that they 
 were matters of enough importance to in- 
 vestigate, they separated. The fact was that 
 while Ruth belonged to the set of which 
 these accusations were true, she herself was 
 not one of the culprits. The intense pride, 
 that had influenced her in joining the set, 
 likewise kept her aloof from its coarser 
 aspects. She came in contact with them, she 
 knew about them, and her moral sense was 
 dwarfed, perhaps for all life; but she came 
 from a clean, Puritan stock, and genera- 
 tions of pure women had given her a herit- 
 age that even in these social conditions was 
 a safeguard. 
 
 Ruth had some difficulty in getting all 
 the time for promenading the streets that 
 she wanted without exciting her mother's 
 suspicion. If the hour was very late when 
 she came from school, she pleaded head- 
 ache and the need of fresh air. 
 
 She was always so lady-like that her 
 mother never questioned her behavior when 
 away from her. Besides, she had good
 
 DODO'S SISTER. 99 
 
 standing in school, her marks were excel- 
 lent, and to her mother she appeared the 
 very ideal of a girl. 
 
 If the girl who is morally in dangerous 
 places would only make such tremendous 
 breaks from the required social standards 
 as the boy will, her danger could be so much 
 more easily discovered and dealt with. 
 
 Quite to the contrary, however, she is all 
 the time deporting herself in the most ap- 
 proved and lady-like manner. 
 
 In the school Ruth was faithfully doing 
 the required work, for her love of admira- 
 tion would never permit her to fall behind 
 her classmates. 
 
 Oh, this love of admiration, how strong 
 it is in womankind! No woman can be 
 womanly without it. When it is narrowed 
 entirely to personal appearances, and is 
 obnoxiously apparent, we call it vanity ; but 
 in its normal condition it is what has made 
 woman lovable under the most trying cir- 
 cumstances. She must be loved whatever
 
 100 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 else happens, and to be loved is to be ad- 
 mired. 
 
 This element was intense in Ruth. If it 
 could have been rightly directed, it would 
 have been the means of developing her into 
 a strong, useful woman; but turned in the 
 wrong direction it would have just the op- 
 posite effect. 
 
 To appear stupid would not have been so 
 stinging to Ruth, it is true, as to appear 
 common, or what she called vulgar; but 
 she would have made a much greater effort 
 than school requirements demanded to keep 
 a respectable standing in school. 
 
 She was in no sense dull. She had an 
 ordinary supply of good brain power, and 
 an unusual amount of pride and ambition. 
 It was her misfortune that she had not had 
 a strong, firm hand to guide her, and she 
 was swept along in the current of public 
 school life that appealed most strongly to 
 her inclinations. 
 
 ^ Her mother's hands and heart were 
 crowded with duties. Not that she felt that
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 101 
 
 her children were neglected. To her a 
 mother's duty was to care for the bodily 
 wants of her children, to teach them gen- 
 eral and formal Christian duties, and to 
 send them to school. 
 
 She did these things as well as she could. 
 The little steps were carefully guided. But 
 it is the little steps that need the least care. 
 As the children grew older she had no power 
 to penetrate their secret thoughts, much less 
 to guide them. She had no power to know 
 whether the inner spiritual life of the child 
 was developing roundly and wholesomely. 
 That word spiritual presents to so many 
 minds just what it did to Ruth's mother. It 
 was that element in the human soul that 
 lit up sister Brown's face when she prayed, 
 and it would come to her children when 
 they were old enough if they attended 
 prayer meeting and other means of its culti- 
 vation. In the meantime, the real spiritual 
 life of her daughter was a sealed book to 
 her. 
 
 There was not a genuine bond of sym-
 
 102 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 pathy between them. She had never really 
 invited" the confidence of her child. It can 
 never be forced from any child, and only 
 comes spontaneously when she feels that in- 
 fluence impelling her to reveal her feelings 
 that a really congenial soul exerts. 
 
 Others may wash and cook and sew for 
 her, and it is a matter of little importance; 
 but when another than the mother must be 
 the girl's best friend, it is a grave misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 "Best friend" does not mean to the girl 
 just what even Ruth might have thought. 
 The chattering girl companion did not know 
 her deepest life. There are deeps and deeps 
 in the life of a young girl. 
 
 Only an older person could ever have 
 drawn confidences from her that were deep- 
 est and most real, and that person had never 
 yet come into her life. 
 
 She had long, long thoughts that were 
 left all unsettled because she had never 
 come in contact with any one that called 
 from her her real, inner life.
 
 DODIVS SISTER. 103 
 
 Strange, that the mother had so far for- 
 gotten the days of her own girlhood, when 
 the wonderful problems of life were just be- 
 ginning to present themselves to her. She 
 had never considered this contact with her 
 child's life necessary. She had good, time- 
 honored ideas about her duty. She was 
 first to be a good housekeeper. Her own 
 mother had impressed this idea upon her 
 mind by many a precept and illustration. 
 
 She had told her the story of the man 
 who started out to find a wife. He went 
 from house to house, asking for crumbs of 
 dried bread dough from the last week's 
 bread pan. When finally he was told by 
 one house-wife that such things never ex- 
 isted in that house, he said: "It is the 
 daughter of this house that I want for my 
 wife." 
 
 Also in a book that her father had given 
 her as a Christmas present she found an 
 essay or two on "How to Choose a Wife." 
 The point that was made most vivid to her 
 girlish mind was the advice to young men
 
 104 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 that if, in walking behind a girl, they should 
 see a raveling on her dress, to be sure of 
 one thing, that she was not fitted to be a 
 wife. 
 
 Now, no such things as ravelings or dried 
 bread crumbs ever remained unmolested in 
 her house, and she considered herself pos- 
 sessed of one of the great qualifications of 
 motherhood. Housekeeping and mother- 
 hood are no more related than gardening 
 and fatherhood. 
 
 The most ideal housekeeper may be a 
 complete failure as a mother, and the moth- 
 er who can keep her daughter's life as close 
 to her as the apple is to the tree, may be 
 very far from perfection in the matter of 
 drawers and closets. 
 
 Ruth had gone to her father occasional- 
 ly when her mother had failed her. 
 
 Her preacher father would have been 
 shocked if he could have been aware of 
 the tumult of thoughts that were stirred 
 up in her mind when a visitor replied to a 
 remark of his:
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 105 
 
 "That is a memory of some former exist- 
 ence. You have lived before, you know." 
 
 Her father merely laughed, and Ruth 
 looked at him in doubt, wondering if he 
 really believed that. She was unable to 
 decide, and after much wondering said: 
 
 "Papa, were we just made as we are, or 
 have we really lived before, as Mr. Jennings 
 said?" 
 
 "Those are no thoughts for a child like 
 you, Ruth. You are not old enough to talk 
 about such things. Leave them alone until 
 you are older." 
 
 Why did not the good man add, "and we 
 will explain them to you then?" 
 
 In this childish brain, forever busy, there 
 was a turmoil of thoughts that were sug- 
 gested by the fragments of the conversa- 
 tion of older people. 
 
 She was shut out from all real com- 
 munion by parents who were so convinced 
 that it was their duty to appear wise to their 
 children that they repelled any confidence 
 that was dangerous to this ideal.
 
 106 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 The questioning child has always been 
 called the thinking child, but the child that 
 rarely questions is quite as often the 
 thoughtful one. 
 
 Ruth was with her mother very little of 
 the time. The school hours were length- 
 ened far into the afternoon, and only rarely 
 did the mother expect any help from her. 
 
 Almost apologetically she would say: 
 
 "I did need you so much, Ruth, to help 
 take care of the baby. He is so fretful now 
 that he is teething that I haven't been able 
 to do anything since dinner but take care 
 of him. I want you to roll him in his car- 
 riage and give him a little fresh air." 
 
 "Why can't Mary do that? I don't want 
 to go rolling a baby like a nurse girl." 
 
 "Mary has all that she can do in the 
 kitchen. If you had come home in time 
 you might have ironed some of the plain 
 clothes and given her time to take him 
 out." 
 
 "Well, I'm just not going to spread my 
 hands doing hired girl's work. I'll take the
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 107 
 
 baby out to the hammock. There is just as 
 much fresh air there as any place." 
 
 So unwillingly she took the little fellow 
 out of his mother's aching arms and car- 
 ried him out to the hammock. He knew 
 the unsympathetic touch, and kicked and 
 screamed in resistance. 
 
 "He won't be good with me. I don't 
 know how to take care of babies." 
 
 "You might learn with a little more pa- 
 tience, dear." 
 
 "I never can learn. I don't want to learn. 
 I wish I lived with Auntie May where they 
 don't have a lot of hateful babies to take 
 care of." 
 
 "O, Ruth, don't talk so. Just think what 
 a gift from God our dear baby is." 
 
 But Ruth was still unconvinced'. She 
 carried the baby with an expression that 
 showed an utter lack of an appreciation of 
 the appropriateness of the gift. Once in 
 the hammock, the little one was jerked back 
 and forth, while Ruth stood wondering why 
 so many of the girls could always have such
 
 108 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 nice clothes, while she was compelled to 
 battle over each new garment, and do such 
 disagreeable things as to rock babies. 
 
 The baby responded to Ruth's mood, and 
 sent forth such wails that it brought the 
 mother to the scene of action. 
 
 "Why don't you sit in the hammock with 
 him and be more kind?" the mother sug- 
 gested patiently. 
 
 "I don't see what more I can do. I can 
 swing him better this way." 
 
 But the little arms went up and the under 
 lip trembled at the mother's approach in 
 such a pathetic way that Ruth gained her 
 point, and the mother's tired arms once 
 more held the heavy little body. 
 
 It was these little victories that were 
 gradually deciding the relation between 
 mother and child. Ruth each day had less 
 respect for her mother's opinion on any sub- 
 ject, and less confidence in her ability to en- 
 force obedience in what she resolutely 
 determined not to do. 
 
 Open rebellion would have called for
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 109 
 
 severe measures ; but a weak loving mother 
 was gradually being conquered by a self- 
 willed, selfish child. 
 
 In the household, where her hands and 
 feet could have saved her mother so many 
 weary moments, very little was ever de- 
 manded of her. Occasionally the father in- 
 terfered, and insisted on some trifling house- 
 hold duty being performed; but even he 
 relented from his severity when he saw the 
 violet eyes fill with tears, and the pretty lip 
 tremble. 
 
 She felt herself abused, and her sweet, 
 feminine beauty appealed even to him, until 
 he gave his tacit consent to a systematic 
 course of training in pure selfishness. 
 
 The little hands were kept white, the 
 tapering nails were never broken, and the 
 consideration of herself before all others 
 was regarded as a natural right. Even thus 
 favored, she considered herself abused that 
 she was compelled to do with much less of 
 the world's goods than many of her young 
 friends.
 
 110 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 In after years, when the need of her 
 parents' counsels was much more impor- 
 tant, when she was too old for punishment 
 or discipline, the parents wondered why, 
 with all their kindness, their child should 
 have such disregard for their wishes. 
 
 The thought that Ruth could not always 
 stay under their protecting roof, that she 
 must some day come in contact with a 
 world that would not use her as if she were 
 a petted plaything, did not often occur to 
 these inconsiderate parents. The mother 
 had a dim notion that Ruth's beauty would 
 raise her above the common lot of women. 
 She failed to realize that her daughter's life 
 must, in its phases of responsibility, be in 
 some sense a repetition of her own; that 
 her duties would be a woman's duties, call- 
 ing for patience, self-sacrificing, and suf- 
 fering. 
 
 It is no doubt a beautiful and poetic idea 
 that these sweet young girls are fair flowers, 
 with no more serious mission than to shed 
 their fragrance and beauty for the delight
 
 m 
 
 DODD'S SISTER. Ill 
 
 of mankind. Beautiful it would be, if it 
 were only true. Beauty, however valued 
 and sought, never makes life's duties any 
 lighter for a woman, and there comes a 
 time when she awakens to the fact that she 
 was not created merely to beautify the 
 earth, but to confront its hard and serious 
 duties like the rest of human kind. 
 
 It is always a shock, and often a serious 
 one, and she revolts against her destiny 
 only to make herself a burden to society. 
 Of all the teachers into whose hands Ruth 
 came, only one ever realized that these girls 
 needed any special thought or care. They 
 never ran away from school, or told lies, or 
 refused to obey. They never in any way 
 flagrantly disregarded the rules of the 
 school. They were never rude or coarse. In 
 fine, they were the show pupils. Was there 
 an entertainment either in the school or in 
 the Sunday school, these were the ones who 
 were always put forward to speak, to sing, 
 to pose. They were usually the favorites, or 
 as the other girls called them, the "pets,"
 
 112 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 and they accepted the relation as their na- 
 tural right. The teachers stood somewhat 
 in awe of their criticism. 
 
 One woman there was who had been be- 
 tween the mill-stones of life until she had 
 learned their cruel grind to its full extent, 
 who recognized the falseness of their ideals 
 and motives. This woman, who had been 
 left to perform the duties of motherhood to 
 her little ones, and at the same time to 
 earn their daily bread, one day led her little 
 two-year-old into the school room. Many 
 of the girls crowded around her, and tried 
 all their pretty arts of coaxing to attract 
 the little child. 
 
 But none of the "swell" set were among 
 them. A patronizing "How cute!" as they 
 passed along was all the attention they 
 deigned to bestow. 
 
 "Why does a little child not have the 
 same natural attraction for these girls as for 
 the others?" was her query. 
 
 She began to study into their lives. 
 Secretiveness was so much a characteristic
 
 DODD'S SISTE'R. 113 
 
 with them that this was not an easy matter ; 
 but with patience she found that the con- 
 versation common among them was of a na- 
 ture calculated to shock propriety. 
 
 Not grossly obscene, it was saturated 
 with suggestiveness. 
 
 The woman who could best stifle the ma- 
 ternal instincts was looked upon with ad- 
 miration as an ideal of "smartness." 
 
 They had their young lovers, and billet- 
 doux of the most extravagant nature passed 
 between them. 
 
 With infinite tact this teacher began to 
 ingratiate herself into the confidence of 
 these girls. Her babies and the memory of 
 a husband she loved were the sweetest 
 things in life to her, and it appalled her to 
 find that these girls, not yet in their maiden- 
 hood, should hold all that these signified 
 in contempt. 
 
 Ruth impressed her as being the most 
 susceptible, and she tried with all her art to 
 draw her out with reference to her aims 
 and ideals. 
 
 8
 
 114 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Unfortunately, just as it appeared that 
 she was having some influence, and elicit- 
 ing some germs of confidence, a new ap- 
 pointment moved the Weaver family to an- 
 other locality. In a few weeks all impres- 
 sion made by this woman upon Ruth had 
 been effaced. If the nomadic life of her 
 father had not compelled her to leave this 
 woman at this critical period, she might 
 have proved the open sesame to the truer 
 and better nature of the girl. 
 
 In another town and another school Ruth 
 found the same set of companions. Wher- 
 ever she went she never failed to find them. 
 Sometimes they were more numerous, 
 sometimes they were more saturated with 
 these precocious and disastrous sentiments, 
 but she never failed to find them. 
 
 The teacher who had discovered what was 
 the life and the ideal of these girls brought 
 the matter up a little later at a teachers' 
 meeting in as direct a way as she dared. 
 The principal looked at her a moment as if 
 she had completely lost her senses, and then
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 115 
 
 changed the subject to the consideration of 
 the best method to regulate the match 
 games of base ball. 
 
 She did not allude to it again, yet she 
 felt that it was a theme that needed serious 
 thought. 
 
 When Ruth again entered school she ha<i 
 left her girlhood behind her, and was stand- 
 ing on the threshold of her maidenhood.
 
 116 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 MAIDENHOOD. 
 
 "Standing with reluctant feet, 
 Where the brook and river meet." 
 
 Ruth did not stand with reluctant feet; 
 she was eager to go on. The years before 
 her contained no mystery. The period that 
 is the heritage of the natural girl, the beau- 
 tiful wonder-age that poetry has called 
 "sweet sixteen," would never become a part 
 of her life. She would have to go back to 
 her childhood to find the shy timidity that 
 usually comes to girls when they find them- 
 selves for the first time the objects of ad- 
 miration and attention. The sudden reali- 
 zation of this that sends the hand involun- 
 tarily to the hair to tuck a curl into place, 
 or give the long braids a swing, or press a 
 rebellious hair pin into the ambitious coif- 
 fure; the apprehensive glance at the toe of 
 the shoe, the sudden straightening of the 
 waist and pressing down of the belt, and
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 117 
 
 the faint blush of pink that betrays the fact 
 that the girl realizes her young womanhood, 
 these were the things that would not come 
 to Ruth. 
 
 She stopped before each mirror that hap- 
 pened in her way, but not with that quick, 
 stolen glance that betrays such conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 It was done deliberately, and she turned 
 away with the satisfied toss of the head that 
 shows experience and gratified pride. She 
 spent a long time before her own little glass 
 before she considered her toilet complete 
 the first morning that she started for school. 
 
 "Why do you take so long to dress your- 
 self, Ruth? You would look just as well if 
 you spent less time, and I did hope that you 
 could help me a little this morning." 
 
 "You know the first morning counts for 
 so much, mamma. I'm sure I can't go to 
 school and work too. Auntie May always 
 told me to make a good first impression, for 
 it was worth everything." 
 
 It was a very fair, slender girl that pre-
 
 118 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 sented herself at the door of the high school 
 that September morning. She had not the 
 straight shapeless form so commonly seen 
 in girls, for corsets and infinite care with 
 puff and ruffle and pleat had aided much 
 in giving her a womanly appearance. 
 
 She looked the principal over with a cool 
 criticism that made him feel a trifle uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 What was there in that first moment of 
 meeting that made the principal mentally 
 decide that the new preacher's daughter 
 would not be a desirable accession to his 
 school, and caused Ruth to draw herself to 
 her highest when she met his glance, and 
 write to her girl friends that she knew he 
 would be "just horrid?" 
 
 There was a sort of instinctive antagon- 
 ism between the two, and each recognized 
 in the other a power that was to be dreaded. 
 
 When Ruth told at home that she did not 
 like her new teacher, she found it very diffi- 
 cult to tell why.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 119 
 
 "O, he laughs horrid; and he keeps one 
 foot going whenever he sits down." 
 
 She had not analyzed the case sufficiently 
 to realize that the absence of any admir- 
 ing glance was what she missed. 
 
 Never before, from the time that she had 
 cried for her brown slippers to the present, 
 had she come under a teacher whom she 
 could not influence with a sweet smile and 
 a bright coquettish air. 
 
 But this teacher was a masculine "old 
 maid" in his very nature. He tolerated the 
 girls in his school because the law allowed 
 them there, but he was always surprised 
 if they made a creditable recitation. 
 
 And they never did their best. He was 
 constantly insinuating their inferiority; at 
 the end of every question asked of a girl 
 there was an inflection indicating that it 
 would probably not be answered. The girls 
 in his school always caused him more trou- 
 ble than the boys. Even Ruth, in whom 
 the spirit of mischief did not predominate, 
 took delight in annoying him.
 
 120 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 When at their first meeting she realized 
 how little impression her girlish charms had 
 on him, she immediately concluded that at 
 some former time he had been disappointed 
 in a love affair. She could imagine no 
 other cause for his callousness. 
 
 He had been in the school for many 
 years, and had taught the parents of the 
 boys and girls now under his charge, but 
 he had never discovered that the way to 
 govern the girl is through her pride and 
 her affection. In fact he gave her little 
 thought. He would have abolished her if he 
 could, and being unable to do that he en- 
 dured with a very poor grace her presence 
 in his school, and she always with his co- 
 operation degenerated from any former 
 standing as a scholar. 
 
 In the early history of the town there had 
 been all preparation for a "boom," and it 
 was a matter of some speculative importance 
 when the school board met to decide upon 
 the location of the new school bunding that 
 was to supersede the earlier temporary one.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 121 
 
 "We want it where it will show up well," 
 one of the "city fathers" remarked. 
 
 "Yes, certainly, if we put all this money 
 into a school we must have something that 
 will show up big in the advertising pamph- 
 lets. There is nothing in the world that 
 will advertise a town and bring in people 
 like a fine school building. We want it 
 where it will show up well/' 
 
 "I tell you, the bluffs is just the place." 
 
 "Too far out, isn't it?" 
 
 "Not a bit. Just what the little fellows 
 need. Won't hurt them a bit more than to 
 play ball all that time." 
 
 "Take a little of the mischief out of them, 
 hey?" with an appeal to the principal who 
 had been called in for consultation. 
 
 "O, that's all right," and that worthy gave 
 a knowing laugh calculated to impress the 
 board with the fact that he could attend to 
 such small matters without any aid. 
 
 The discussion went on. Plans were 
 laid before them by the special committee, 
 and the size and cost of arch, column and
 
 122 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 cupola received due consideration. What 
 they could afford in fancy stone for trim- 
 ming, and finally the heating apparatus were 
 discussed. 
 
 There was some suggestion that stoves 
 would be more economical, but this sug- 
 gestion was laughed to scorn. How could 
 stoves be advertised in the pamphlet? As 
 an afterthought, and in the face of the op- 
 position of the stove advocate, who thought 
 it would be a waste of heat, a system of 
 ventilation was decided upon. 
 
 It was a long time before the subject of 
 location was finally settled. The man who 
 owned property on the heights and the man 
 who favored an extension of the town in 
 that direction were very firmly convinced 
 that the bluffs afforded the most advan- 
 tageous situation in all respects, and all 
 agreed that for "showing up" purposes it 
 could have no equal. 
 
 There was one faint, lone objection. 
 
 "The children can't climb that hill in 
 winter.''
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 123 
 
 "O, that's nothing. We can put in some 
 steps in the worst places with very little 
 expense." 
 
 To be sure. That was just the thing. 
 Steps would fix things all right And the 
 property owner and the extension man 
 would be glad, and how that building would 
 "show up" from Main Street, and Dinwiddie 
 Street, and the Park, and the depot! 
 
 Yes, the bluffs was the place. 
 
 "School house location is fixed," said one 
 member of the board to his wife, as he re- 
 turned home. 
 
 "Where is the location?" 
 
 "Up on the bluffs." 
 
 "On the bluffs? Are you men crazy?" 
 
 "Crazy? No madam. We are not crazy. 
 Magnificent show from Main Street and the 
 Depot. Just the thing for our advertising 
 pamphlet." 
 
 "Why, papa, what are you thinking of? 
 You know Mabel cannot climb that hill, 
 and she will be in the high school next 
 year."
 
 124 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "Well, I couldn't bring personal consid- 
 erations into the discussion of an important 
 subject like that." 
 
 Dear man, of course he couldn't for he 
 never thought of it. He had very carefully 
 considered expenses, extensions, town 
 "boom," advertising pamphlets, and (inci- 
 dentally and collectively) even "the little 
 fellows;" but his own delicate daughter, and 
 what it might mean to her had never oc- 
 curred to him nor to any other man on that 
 board. 
 
 To the mother it came as the first and 
 controlling consideration, but what of that? 
 
 The school house went up on the bluffs; 
 and it presented a beautiful appearance 
 from Main Street, and Dinwiddie Street, 
 and the Park, and the depot, and in the 
 pamphlet. 
 
 There were twice as many girls as boys 
 in the high school, yet their peculiar needs 
 had never been the object of consideration 
 for a moment. In fact it had never oc- 
 curred to those men that girls of that age
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 125 
 
 have peculiar needs. Had they been pil- 
 lars, or fancy trimming stone, or even a 
 stair railing, they would have come in for 
 a share of consideration. 
 
 But what did it mean to those girls, who 
 for the first four years of their womanhood, 
 were compelled to climb that hill and the 
 two flights of stairs that had to be mounted 
 before the high school room was reached? 
 
 It meant increased back-ache and 
 head-ache, weak eyes, over-taxed nerves, 
 palpitating heart, disordered stomach, and 
 every other evil that follows in the train of 
 that insidious disease that has settled down 
 on the American women. 
 
 The hill and the long stairs were not alone 
 responsible for it; it exists in every public 
 school in America; but these things impose 
 conditions on the girls that augment their 
 troubles, and make them wrecks of woman- 
 hood when they pose as "sweet girl gradu- 
 ates." 
 
 The daughters of the land have a right to 
 expect on the part of the individuals who
 
 126 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 have charge of their education some knowl- 
 edge of their needs; but it is a deplorable 
 fact that the ordinary member of the school 
 board cares little, and knows less, about the 
 subject. 
 
 He pays the doctor bills of his wife and 
 daughter with the readiness of the indul- 
 gent American husband and father. He ex- 
 pects to do it. That is one of the unfortunate 
 features of the subject. Our women and 
 girls are sick so much that the men expect 
 it as a part of the price they pay for the 
 privilege of having a wife. 
 
 That there is a cause for it for which they 
 are partly responsible would be an amazing 
 revelation to them. If the men will insist 
 upon the exclusive control of the school 
 boards, it would be no more than fair that 
 they have some proper knowledge of the 
 need of the majority of the pupils of our 
 high schools. 
 
 The fact that the proportion of our wo- 
 men who are sick is nine in every ten would 
 be a surprise to them; but it is a fact, and
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 127 
 
 it is a matter of grave importance to un- 
 derstand the cause. 
 
 In Europe the statement has been made 
 that the climate of our country is unhealthy 
 because our women are in such a diseased 
 condition. Why, the Indian women lived 
 here for centuries, went through all the 
 vicissitudes of maternity, and there was no 
 army of doctors or swarm of patent medi- 
 cine men deriving their sustenance from 
 them. Our men dismiss the subject with 
 "O, it is the way you live!" No doubt it is; 
 but how do we live? What is it in our lives 
 that makes them radically different from the 
 lives of our grandmothers? Why is it that 
 a foreign woman, not from the class who 
 work in the field, but from the good mid- 
 dle class, will bring up a family of girls in 
 this country, living in the home just about 
 such a life as she did in Europe, maintain- 
 ing her own health unimpaired through 
 years of American conditions, and yet find 
 these daughters the same physical wrecks 
 when they come to years of womanhood,
 
 128 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 as the American woman is? One vital point 
 of difference is the public school. The pub- 
 lic schools of America are largely responsi- 
 ble for the ruined constitutions of American 
 women. 
 
 What! Shall woman, just as she has 
 demonstrated the long-disputed fact that 
 she is capable of the same education as a 
 man, confess that in order to do it she must 
 wreck her health and happiness? 
 
 No, she need not confess that; but she 
 must confess that the system of education 
 onto which she has been grafted is un- 
 suited to her needs. 
 
 That there must be a great deal of knowl- 
 edge and many new ideas acquired by our 
 school boards; that there must be many 
 new elements introduced into our school 
 system; that the needs of the girls, as well 
 as the needs of the boys, must have study; 
 and that women teachers must assert them- 
 selves to get thought and attention from the 
 men, must be recognized before she can 
 properly acquire her education.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 129 
 
 This school in which Ruth started in her 
 critical age was one of the worst of its kind, 
 but unfortunately it is multiplied many 
 times in every state. What she really need- 
 ed was a system of education that should be 
 physical as well as mental. It was abso- 
 lutely necessary to her proper development. 
 She needed it more than any boy in school. 
 Why did she not have it? Was not the 
 play ground as free to her as to the boy? 
 Certainly it was ; but custom with its crush- 
 ing hand has ruled out of the life of every 
 girl, who has passed beyond the child 
 period, any part in any game that will in 
 the least call for physical exertion. It 
 would seem as if every effort were being 
 made on the part of those in charge of our 
 girls to make the conditions of her educa- 
 tion as unfavorable as possible. 
 
 There were days when the nervous strain 
 should have been lightened; when warmth 
 and quiet were the first essentials to her 
 well-being; but what did her teacher know 
 of these things?
 
 130 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Ruth had started into school with all her 
 old ambition to be first. To her great sur- 
 prise she found herself responsible for learn- 
 ing the lessons that were assigned her. She 
 had been taught for so many years, that 
 the habit of learning was very difficult for 
 her. It called for unusual exertion at the 
 age when she had little vitality to expend, 
 but there was little chance of lightening the 
 stress when it bore too heavily, for there 
 was no elasticity in the system. 
 
 One wet morning when Ruth started on 
 her long tramp up the hill, her mother pro- 
 tested. 
 
 "You ought not to go to school to-day, 
 Ruth. It really is not right. I wish you 
 would lie down on the couch and keep 
 warm and quiet." 
 
 "Why, mamma Weaver! How can I? 
 Don't you know I will get an absent mark, 
 and that will bring down my grade? I 
 should certainly fall into the second di- 
 vision, and then the grade of our room 
 wouldn't stand first if any of us stay out."
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 131 
 
 "But you are not able to do it. At any 
 rate I will write a note to the teacher, and 
 see if you can not sit where it is warm." 
 
 "Why, the idea! I wouldn't do such a 
 thing for the world. I can get along just 
 as well as the other girls." 
 
 And half sick and irritable she started for 
 school. She climbed the long slippery hill, 
 and dragged herself wearily up the stairs. 
 Her skirts were wet, and remained so 
 through the morning. When school called, 
 she felt exhausted and nervous; her les- 
 sons were failures, and she was unusually 
 trying to the gentleman in charge. The 
 girls were always more difficult for him to 
 manage than the boys; he could not use 
 his hickory ferule on them for one thing; 
 and when Ruth had twisted and turned, and 
 whispered beyond what he was accustomed 
 to endure, he said: 
 
 "Take the platform, Miss Weaver." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, then bit her lip 
 and walked to the platform. The teacher 
 went on with his work. He was explaining
 
 132 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 a long problem in algebra, and had com- 
 pletely forgotten the girl on the platform, 
 when the whole school was startled by the 
 sound of a fall, and he turned to see Ruth 
 lying face down on the platform. He went 
 to her, and with the help of one of the boys 
 lifted her into the cloak room and sent for 
 a carriage to take her home. He was ex- 
 ceedingly annoyed. That was not the first 
 time such a thing had happened. He saw 
 no sense in it. The girl had deserved pun- 
 ishment; she had acted abominably. 
 
 What that had meant to every girl that 
 he had sent to the platform in his long 
 career, the suffering he had caused, he 
 never imagined. His ferule would have 
 been far preferable. No man who is un- 
 married, or has not had a course in medi- 
 cine, has any right to have charge of girls 
 of that age. 
 
 The next day Ruth was at school again, 
 a trifle pale, but otherwise appearing as 
 usual. It had been a hard fight, but the 
 grade had been saved. The fear of losing
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 133 
 
 rank, of falling below first place in respect 
 to attendance had been so systematically 
 drilled into these girls, that such inconsid- 
 erable things as head-ache and back-ache 
 could not keep them at home. 
 
 The Epworth League were to have a 
 "Gipsy Social" that night, and Ruth was to 
 be the queen. When evening came she 
 dressed herself in the required costume) with 
 arms and neck bare, and feet just caught 
 in white slippers, and went out to the lawn 
 where the crowd was gathered. 
 
 "Why, my dear child! What are you 
 thinking of? You will catch your death of 
 cold. Do wear your shoes and something 
 over your shoulders if you must go out in 
 that wet grass !" her mother said. 
 
 "How I would look! A Gipsy Queen 
 with a shawl on! I should disgrace the 
 whole affair." 
 
 "Well, that would be better than to be 
 sick." 
 
 "I shan't be sick. There is no use in you 
 fussing so."
 
 134 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 And Ruth continued her preparations 
 without paying the least attention to her 
 mother's advice. She was now too old to be 
 compelled to do what was unpleasant to her, 
 and the time was long past when she could 
 have been convinced that her mother's 
 judgment was superior to her own. 
 
 Ruth played the queen to perfection, and 
 was the most charming of all the tinsel- 
 bedecked maidens. So much did she enjoy 
 the compliments and attention thai she re- 
 ceived, that she forgot that there was such a 
 thing as weariness. 
 
 It was there, as it is everywhere, the 
 plain girls were dishing the ice cream or 
 doing some useful, inconspicuous work, 
 while Ruth and her set, under the beautiful 
 canopy, were the center of attraction. 
 
 It was not until the crowd began to go 
 home and the work of clearing up was at 
 hand, that Ruth began to realize how miser- 
 able she felt. 
 
 "Girls, I certainly can't stay any longer 
 to help with that work. I'm almost dead."
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 135 
 
 The girls were not at all surprised at 
 this. It was much like Ruth's usual way; 
 and after some few remarks that were too 
 near the truth to be uttered in Ruth's pres- 
 ence, they went on with their work. When 
 she was in her own room, and all necessity 
 for exertion was over, she realized that her 
 feet were wet, and that the slight chill she 
 had felt for the last hour had given way to 
 a burning fever. In the morning Ruth 
 found that she had more than weariness to 
 contend with, and the doctor was called. 
 He gave an opiate and remarked indiffer- 
 ently that those troubles were quite com- 
 mon with girls. So mother and daughter 
 accepted it as part of the price of woman- 
 hood. That many things had led up to it, 
 and that it all might have been prevented, 
 did not seem to be considered. 
 
 But for all her life Ruth Weaver, like 
 thousands of her sisters, was paying the 
 penalty of the utter absence of thought on 
 the part of those who had her life in charge. 
 
 She was ignorant; her mother was faint-
 
 136 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ly persuaded that it might have been pre- 
 vented; the doctor was politic and discreet; 
 and the teacher was indifferent. 
 
 The whole muscular system had been al- 
 lowed to degenerate, because it had no 
 proper exercise. While the boys were on 
 the play ground, she was sitting on the 
 stair-way or in the school room or walking 
 up and down the side-walk. 
 
 In the winter the boys went into the va- 
 cant story above, where a gymnasium had 
 been arranged for them. By special per- 
 mission the girls were occasionally allowed 
 to visit it and watch the boys show off their 
 acrobatic acts, but not one of them even 
 expressed a desire to perform any of those 
 feats. Only the wildest ever dared entertain 
 the secret thought. 
 
 Why did not the authorities who provid- 
 ed a gymnasium for the boys, have like con- 
 sideration for the girls? Every girl there 
 who was to fulfill the mission of maternity 
 would need all the strength of muscle and 
 nerve she could possibly get. But she did
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 137 
 
 not get it, and what is worse, she did not 
 want it. The healthful play spirit was 
 largely crushed out of her, and her muscles 
 were so flaccid that action held no delight 
 for her. When the time came that this mus- 
 cular strength was absolutely needed she 
 was physically undone, and had passed into 
 the ever increasing ranks of sick American 
 mothers. 
 
 The girl ought to find some muscular 
 developing power in the performance of the 
 household duties. Nothing of this nature 
 was ever expected of Ruth. She was not 
 different in this respect from many of the 
 other girls of the school. Her time was 
 crowded so full of many other duties that 
 very little was left for the performance of 
 household tasks even had she felt thus in- 
 clined. She had become habituated to be- 
 ing waited upon. The mother patiently per- 
 formed the servant's part, and indulgent to 
 the caprices of the daughter, she en- 
 couraged her in the various engagements 
 that were more congenial to her taste.
 
 138 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 On Monday night the literary society of 
 the high school met, and Ruth was one of 
 the most enthusiastic members. Tuesday 
 evening was appointed for the chorus class. 
 After the hour of practice her "set" went off 
 in couples to spend the rest of the evening 
 together. On Wednesday evening there 
 was choir practice and Sunday school teach- 
 ers' meeting, and she was connected with 
 both choir and Sunday school. 
 
 A girl of sixteen is really just about ready 
 to enter upon a comprehensive study of 
 the Bible, and if she is assigned her most ap- 
 propriate place she will be found in a class 
 under the direction of a person of mature 
 judgment. On the contrary Ruth and five 
 or six of her mates had charge of classes of 
 children that were getting their first im- 
 pressions of Bible truths in the most dis- 
 torted manner from these immature, undis- 
 ciplined teachers. 
 
 The ideas of heaven with its pearly gates 
 and throne of gold were impressed in such 
 a graphic style that to her last day the little
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 139 
 
 girl's imagination always pictured it in the 
 same way, regardless of anything that rea- 
 son might wish to substitute. 
 
 The stereotyped strangeness and stillness 
 and monotony of it was rather effective in 
 dampening their childish ardor for occu- 
 pancy, and all the fierceness of the terrors 
 of the only alternative had to be graphical- 
 ly pictured before it could be made reason- 
 ably alluring. But these young teachers 
 were usually equal to that too. When they 
 felt moved to inquire into the spiritual con- 
 dition of their little charges they would ask 
 impressively : 
 
 "Mary, don't you want to go to heaven?" 
 
 When the old picture rose before Mary's 
 mind, and she showed no active eagerness 
 for immediate translation, the question was 
 changed to: 
 
 "Well, surely you don't want to go to 
 hell, do you?" in most awful tones. 
 
 The result was a very decided preference 
 on Mary's part for the right here and now 
 as about the best thing going.
 
 140 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 But the young teacher was complacent. 
 She had done her duty. 
 
 On Thursday evening, at her father's ur- 
 gent desire, she was usually at prayer meet- 
 ing. Friday night was supposed to be free, 
 but in reality it was the most crowded night 
 in the week. It was on this night that the 
 "set" had their parties or sleigh rides or 
 moonlight picnics; and on Friday night the 
 church socials of numerous kinds called 
 for work and attendance; or the class in 
 piano music had their term recital. So, very 
 little time was left for mother and daughter 
 to spend together, had they been accus- 
 tomed to find in each other's society the 
 pleasure and profit that each ought to have 
 received from the other; but they lived so 
 much in this outside world, that the real 
 home life did not exist at all. Ruth's home 
 was the place where she staid over night, 
 or came to practice and to eat. 
 
 Although Ruth was at home very little of 
 the time, she usually retired under pretense 
 of lessons either to her room or to some
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 141 
 
 quiet spot. But not all this time was spent 
 in study. One of her constant companions 
 was a story book. Every stray quarter hour 
 was appropriated, and when the book be- 
 came intensely interesting, the lamp was 
 set on a chair beside her bed, and she read 
 until her eyes stung, and the letters swam 
 before them. 
 
 These were not books that she had drawn 
 from the Sunday school library. They were 
 not spiced and seasoned enough for her 
 taste. "An Old-Fashioned Girl," or "We 
 Girls," or any other book that portrayed the 
 life of the normal, well-balanced girl were 
 tame affairs for which she found neither 
 time nor inclination. In short, they were 
 too healthy. She wanted something with a 
 hectic flush. The books that were so eager- 
 ly devoured by lamp light, and found a rest- 
 ing place under her pillow told of girls who 
 were girls in years but women in experi- 
 ence; who were once poor, but either in 
 the course of the story or at its close came 
 into the possession of lavish fortunes.
 
 142 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 They were always "radiantly beautiful." 
 Who was ever genius enough or reckless 
 enough to create a heroine out of an ab- 
 solutely plain woman? 
 
 They were always passionately loved, 
 often by a stoic of a man who had hereto- 
 fore been proof against all of Cupid's wiles ; 
 or, still more likely by a deep dyed villain 
 who had been miraculously reformed the 
 very first time he had gazed upon her re- 
 fulgent beauty. And then forever after he 
 devoted himself to her happiness and lav- 
 ished his wealth upon her; for of course he 
 had wealth. 
 
 The absurdity of it all never dawned upon 
 the girl. She eagerly drank in volume after 
 volume. It was rarely that a week went 
 by in which she did not finish one of these 
 books. She lived with the characters in her 
 day dreams as she mounted the long hill to 
 the school, and talked with her school 
 friends about their fortunes as the books 
 went round among them. 
 
 There were several shelves of these books
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 143 
 
 in the public library with worn covers and 
 pages covered with thumb marks and now 
 and then a tear stain. On the afternoons 
 that the library was open the girls met there 
 and exchanged books and opinions. 
 
 "O, this is perfectly lovely!" or "This is 
 simply elegant!" 
 
 "O, take this one. It's perfectly grand!" 
 
 All superlatives were scarcely enough to 
 express their appreciation. 
 
 But loss of time and eye-sight was 
 the least harm that resulted from this style 
 of reading. 
 
 From these books she got her ideal of 
 life. The every-day life about her was tame 
 and common-place, and not at all what it 
 ought to be in the way of high colors. 
 
 The humble parsonage home; her young 
 brothers and sisters; the plain clothes; the 
 friends the family knew ; were not all these 
 surroundings and associates ill suited to a 
 girl of her high colored ideals? Was she 
 not unjustly chained down to a prosy hum- 
 drum colorless life with which she could
 
 144 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 have no sympathy? The more she com- 
 pared them with the people and things in 
 the books, the more she despised them. 
 
 The thought of the lovers with the dear, 
 dark eyes and lofty carriage and the magni- 
 ficent homes made her at times carry herself 
 with a cold and haughty bearing toward the 
 high school boy who was so bashfully try- 
 ing to pay his attentions to her. 
 
 It was only when she was out from under 
 the spell of the story that she could coolly 
 reason that his father was probably the rich- 
 est man in the county, and that to snub the 
 devoted son was not the part of worldly 
 wisdom. 
 
 But all idea of real manly and maidenly 
 love, of the appreciation of what is true and 
 noble was regularly choked out of this arti- 
 ficial life. 
 
 The dime novel, the synonym of perni- 
 cious literature for the boy, has received so 
 much attention that the fact that girls have 
 a style of literature that exactly corresponds 
 to it seems to have escaped notice.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 145 
 
 They are both injurious because they 
 present false pictures of life. They fire the 
 young reader with the ambition to be great 
 in just the same way that the hero or hero- 
 ine is great. The boy's hero is great in 
 feats of strength and daring. The girl's 
 heroine is great in the fact of grace and 
 beauty. With the boy this comes at an age 
 when the performance of a few foolhardy 
 feats, even disgraceful ones, will represent 
 its full expression. 
 
 With the girl it comes at a time when it 
 may lead her to commit acts that will color 
 her whole life. 
 
 A lover with a moral character just a 
 little doubtful is so much more romantic 
 than the common, every-day, good young 
 man whom the parents approve; and even 
 if, as in the case of Ruth, the desire to 
 be aristocratic would prevent from anything 
 savoring of disgrace, yet her ideals were 
 modeled upon the pictures of life that she 
 found there. 
 
 Her mother need not be equipped "with 
 10
 
 146 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 a little hoard of maxims preaching down a 
 daughter's heart." 
 
 For years she had had it fully arranged in 
 her own mind that she would marry only a 
 rich man. There might be other desirable 
 qualifications, but wealth was absolutely 
 necessary to the winning of her affections. 
 She took it for granted that the beauty and 
 noble bearing of the hero of the books 
 were somehow or other in the kindness of 
 unseen fortune going to be added unto 
 these. 
 
 She understood the full nature and value 
 of her own beauty, and knew all the little 
 arts of the coquette before she was out of 
 her teens. 
 
 She often tried them on the high school 
 boys with such startling success that she 
 longed for the time to come when the re- 
 straints of the preacher's home would be 
 done away with, and she would be free to 
 move in the society that her imagination 
 painted and her soul longed for. She could 
 find no one among her companions worthy
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 147 
 
 of her steel, and with more and more eager- 
 ness she looked forward to the time of her 
 graduation and her year with Auntie May. 
 Many a hard lesson she learned with the 
 sole thought in the learning of it that some 
 day she would move in brilliant society, and 
 in brilliant society one must not be ignor- 
 ant. 
 
 Her father would sometimes say: 
 
 "You will have to earn your own living, 
 Ruth. I can keep you in school until you 
 graduate; then you will have to do some- 
 thing for yourself." 
 
 Ruth would answer with dignity : 
 
 "I suppose I can." 
 
 But she mentally resolved that the time 
 would be short. 
 
 While she lived in this artificial world of 
 her imagination, she was densely ignorant 
 of the real world around her. Her mother 
 had never spoken one word to her that 
 could not be repeated in the presence of the 
 whole family. It was her ideal of modesty 
 never to speak on any subject that required
 
 148 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 privacy. The relations between mother and 
 daughter in this respect were so strained, 
 that Ruth would have gone to almost any 
 one for information sooner than to her 
 mother. 
 
 The mother had once been as ignorant as 
 Ruth of many of the motives in human 
 nature. She was wiser now, yet she allowed 
 her daughter to remain as she was to get 
 her knowledge as best she might from con- 
 tact with humanity. 
 
 Could she have read with Ruth one of 
 those books that captivated her fancy, she 
 might have shown her that the hero who 
 had led the reckless life was a polluted man, 
 whom ages of reformation would not ren- 
 der a fit mate for the young and beautiful 
 bride that he always won. There was a 
 world of knowledge that her mother could 
 have opened up to her in regard to any 
 one of these books. She called this feeling 
 of reluctance to talk freely with her own 
 child modesty. It was not modesty at all.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 149 
 
 It was a distorted idea of God's plans in 
 regard to creation. 
 
 Girls demand, and will have in some form, 
 this story of conquest by love. If they can 
 have it where it is true to life and free from 
 the pestilential atmosphere of passion and 
 vice, it is a wonderful power in moulding 
 their ideals and their lives. 
 
 Their desire for books is almost insatiate, 
 and the mother who searches through litera- 
 ture for the proper reading for her daughter 
 becomes soon aware that it is one of the 
 fields of literature that is not crowded. To 
 make a story that is strong without being 
 passionate ; rich without being untrue ; rep- 
 resenting virtue and vice in their proper 
 relations without obtruding a moral, re- 
 quires a gift that is rare. The girl of a 
 fervid nature despises what appears to her 
 childish, and is injured by a promiscuous 
 reading of literature designed for a dis- 
 criminating age. 
 
 Give her free, undirected access to a pub- 
 lic library, and like a needle to the pole she
 
 150 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 will gravitate to that corner where the worn 
 covers and soiled backs announce their 
 character before they are ever opened. 
 
 There may be a morbid element in this 
 tendency, but it is so common to girls, and 
 to our brightest and most attractive girls, 
 that it must be seriously admitted that there 
 is some natural common cause for it. 
 
 It is confined, in the properly developed 
 girl, to a short period. But during this 
 time, when certain elements in her nature 
 are most active, she craves this kind of sen- 
 sational literature, and usually finds it. 
 
 The time that Ruth appropriated for this 
 reading was not taken by any means at the 
 sacrifice of her school work. She still main- 
 tained her standing in the school, but in 
 order to do this as well, she was obliged to 
 do hard work. 
 
 Her father often objected to this; it al- 
 lowed her so little leisure for numerous im- 
 portant duties, among them those pertain- 
 ing to a missionary band that was support- 
 ing a child in China.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 151 
 
 That child in China had a legitimate claim 
 on his daughter's time and interest. 
 
 "The greatest fault of our public schools 
 is this everlasting crowding. Why don't 
 these educators see that a few things well 
 done are better than something of this and 
 something of that and something of the 
 other, and this constant crowding to get 
 them." 
 
 He always met with concurrent opinion 
 when he made this criticism. It was a very 
 common idea among the parents that their 
 children were over-worked in the high 
 school. 
 
 It must appear in exactly this light to 
 those who see only the effort their children 
 make, and know nothing of the results ac- 
 complished. 
 
 When these same pupils have left the 
 high school and have entered college, they 
 have found the work required of them much 
 more severe. It has required of them at 
 least a year of hard work before they have 
 found themselves capable of grasping readi-
 
 152 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ly what is there demanded, or even memo- 
 rizing with ease. 
 
 But that was not the faulf of the high 
 school. It had required far less work of 
 them than the schools of Europe require of 
 pupils of the same age. 
 
 The cause of this immaturity of grasping 
 power is in the imperfect preparation for 
 doing this work. The method of impress- 
 ing facts upon the mind so as to call for 
 the least possible effort on the part of the 
 learner is pursued from the chart class to 
 the high school, until when the time comes 
 that the large area to be covered renders 
 this impracticable, and the responsibility is 
 thrown upon the pupil instead of upon the 
 teacher, the effort in accomplishment ap- 
 pears out of all proportion to the results 
 secured. 
 
 This effort to make school work captivat- 
 ing, and this disposition to judge a teacher's 
 success by his ability to attract pupils to the 
 school, is disastrous to the best mental de- 
 velopment of the child. It takes the dignity
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 153 
 
 out of the work for the pupil. The desira- 
 bility of education diminishes in the estima- 
 tion of the child. When he reaches the high 
 school, he considers the few dollars that he 
 can get for a "job" of more value than the 
 high school education. More hard work in 
 the under grades and less "grandmother" 
 discipline would swell our graduating 
 classes. 
 
 When those children have left the school 
 and have become the reading public and the 
 listening public, the writer and the speaker 
 must still continue to "entertain," to provide 
 the "bright" and "unique" and cover over 
 their instruction with the same grade of 
 sugar coating that the school teacher used 
 to smear over the morsels of knowledge. 
 
 But the girls, as a rule, do not drop out of 
 school at so early an age. Have they more 
 regard for the results of education? Possi- 
 bly so. Girls are more susceptible to all 
 elevating influences. But there are two 
 other more potent causes. 
 
 One of them is that the paying "job" for
 
 154 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 the young girl is not so easily obtained. 
 The other is that it is considered quite the 
 thing for the girls to have a career. To 
 insure this she must go on with her educa- 
 tion. 
 
 In this connection here is another fact. 
 
 We are giving so much attention to the 
 preparation of girls for some work outside 
 the home that we are losing sight of the fact 
 that after all the very large proportion of 
 girls will be home-makers and mothers. 
 
 It is desirable that the home-making be 
 a matter of choice and not of necessity, and 
 the girls be given the opportunity of prepa- 
 ration to become bread winners for them- 
 selves; yet after all the majority of the girls 
 will prefer to become home-makers and 
 mothers, and in the preparation for bread- 
 winners the mother-girl is being neglected. 
 
 There is no reason why the girl should 
 not be educated for either vocation. The 
 education of the business girl ought not to 
 interfere with the development of the moth- 
 er-girl.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 155 
 
 But one thing is patent over and above 
 all; the girl who is to be a mother must 
 have good health ; education if possible, but 
 health first and education afterwards. 
 
 When the education of the girls is ar- 
 ranged so as to insure health, the girl who 
 may not be the home-maker will be just as 
 fortunate in receiving it as the mother-girl. 
 
 Once more the wheels of the conference 
 machinery moved, and with this change of 
 the Weaver family Ruth entered the high 
 school where her education was to be fin- 
 ished. 
 
 Happy would it have been for her if she, 
 like Dodd, had come in contact with one 
 teacher who understood what the girl need- 
 ed, and had been possessed of the faculty 
 and the tact to have shown her in true light 
 the narrow, false and selfish life into which 
 she had grown. But this was not to be. 
 
 The woman who had charge of this 
 school had come to the position from the 
 humblest walks of life, and to wealth and 
 beauty she still accorded an adoration that
 
 156 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 she had conceived for them when a little 
 child. 
 
 Ruth was immediately classified as "stuck 
 up" by a large portion of the girls, but to 
 the teacher she seemed very charming. 
 
 She once more found play for the many 
 little arts that she had formerly employed 
 with such success in the case of former 
 teachers. Before the first week was over 
 she was once more one of the "teacher's 
 pets." 
 
 The "pets" were composed of that set of 
 girls whom Ruth would have told you were 
 "toney." 
 
 This teacher had never been able in the 
 least degree to associate with this class of 
 girls when she attended school, and in spite 
 of herself she still retained for them some- 
 thing of that feeling that they had then in- 
 spired. 
 
 The most faithful of her pupils were not 
 the ones who received the greatest share of 
 attention and favor. 
 
 She had been ground through the public
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 157 
 
 school mill; she had been properly clipped 
 and repressed and moulded and expanded 
 until she was really a model scholar. When 
 she graduated she had a thin studious look, 
 and the glasses that she had been compelled 
 to wear for four years added to the general 
 valedictorian air that distinguished her. She 
 expected to earn her own living and that of 
 her mother by teaching, and she had kept 
 that point in view all through her school 
 career. 
 
 She had never been pretty. A round 
 dimple in her chin had been the only at- 
 tractive feature of her face, but that had 
 proved to be an everlasting nuisance inas- 
 much as it became a convenient receptacle 
 for crayon dust, and only served to heighten 
 the school-ma'am effect that had begun to 
 attach to her before the sleeves of her gradu- 
 ating dress were out of style. 
 
 When she, had taken her place on the plat- 
 form to give the valedictory address, the 
 nerves of her hands seemed to have rebelled 
 against all control of the will, and her back
 
 158 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 gave premonitory symptoms of the same 
 condition of general nervous collapse. It 
 was not due to timorousness for her courage 
 was steel braced. 
 
 For days she had been dizzy, weak and 
 nauseated, but she merely called it "tired 
 out." She had no idea what caused this 
 state of nervous distraction. She had 
 learned something of all the sciences, but 
 she was ignorant of the conditions of her 
 own anatomy. So ignorant indeed that she 
 never suspected that her condition was a 
 "tired out" from which she would never 
 become rested. 
 
 She had thought that the vacation rest 
 would relieve her aching back, and when in 
 the fall she went to a co-educational col- 
 lege to finish her preparation for teaching, 
 she was discouraged to find the old aches 
 and pains returning at the very first serious 
 exertion. 
 
 She had remained three years at this col- 
 lege, where there was less attention given, 
 if such a thing were possible, to girls and
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 159 
 
 their needs than there had been in the pub- 
 lic schools. 
 
 Three years more of student work, ham- 
 pered by a malady whose crudest quality is 
 that it never kills. 
 
 Who can measure, or who can know the 
 amount of heroism that thousands of girls 
 are showing in their persistent struggle with 
 this suffering as they drag through their 
 college course. 
 
 From the college she had gone to the 
 high school as teacher. 
 
 Compelled at last to get medical advice, 
 she began to study into the cause of her 
 suffering. Then she became aware that it 
 had begun away back in the high school, 
 where she had always been compelled to 
 stop at the top of the long stairs from sheer 
 exhaustion. 
 
 The teacher of physical culture at the col- 
 lege had always insisted that climbing stairs 
 is really a benefit, if rightly done. She was 
 very positive that, in her case, it had never 
 been "rightly done."
 
 160 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 It had been done just as it had been done 
 by the other girls, and as it is done by an 
 infinitely large proportion of humanity, and 
 she was aware that she had suffered from it. 
 
 She began to see other causes that ac- 
 counted for her condition. 
 
 She remembered her ignorance, and con- 
 sequent carelessness. No one had told her 
 what it might mean. Her mother herself 
 did not know. The doctor did not tell her, 
 because she never asked. 
 
 She was a conscientious woman. She 
 wanted to do what was right for these girls 
 in her care. What should she do? 
 
 She decided that she would begin with a 
 talk with reference to climbing the stairs, 
 and try to impress upon the girls the neces- 
 sity of care. Accordingly she detained them 
 one afternoon, and standing on the platform 
 before them she began by saying: 
 
 "I want to talk to the young ladies in 
 regard to a subject that I think it very im- 
 portant for them to understand. It is in
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 161 
 
 regard to the manner of going up and down 
 stairs." 
 
 She went on and tried by the use of gen- 
 eral terms to impress upon them her mean- 
 ing. She had intended to talk very plainly 
 to them, but she found that when she stood 
 before the girls it was no easy matter to 
 say what she wished. 
 
 She had not realized the difficulties of her 
 undertaking, but she knew by the look of 
 indifference on their faces and their list- 
 less attitudes that the subject had not ap- 
 pealed to them as being of any more im- 
 portance than a hundred others that she had 
 talked to them about, and she realized as 
 they filed out that she had not made enough 
 of an impression on their minds to have any 
 good result. 
 
 Had she heard the scattering remarks in 
 the cloak room, she would have been con- 
 vinced that her fears were not groundless. 
 
 The saucy spirites called to one another. 
 
 "What's the matter with the old lady?" 
 
 "O, she's got an extra dose of back-ache." 
 n
 
 162 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "Look out there, Min ! You want to go a 
 little slow down those stairs or something 
 will get you." 
 
 "Look at me, girls, look! I'll show you 
 how to go down." 
 
 Shrieks of laughter floated into the 
 school room. 
 
 Why had she failed? That was one of the 
 problems on which she studied long. 
 
 She found that her own impressions of 
 everything associated with sex were so 
 saturated with the moral element that it was 
 impossible to discuss the matter in a philo- 
 sophical manner. In talking to young ladies 
 she was in constant terror of saying some- 
 thing indelicate. 
 
 She tried not to allow this feeling to in- 
 fluence her. She struggled against it in re- 
 peated efforts to talk to the girls, but the 
 horrified expression on their faces when she 
 used any term to express her meaning that 
 was out of the vocabulary of common con- 
 versation discouraged her. 
 
 Gradually she relinquished her efforts,
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 163 
 
 and silenced her conscience with the argu- 
 ment that she was not responsible for the in- 
 struction of these girls in such matters. 
 
 She was no doubt right. But the diffi- 
 culty in doing anything to help the mothers 
 was caused by the utter neglect of the moth- 
 ers themselves to properly instruct their 
 own girls. 
 
 A very large proportion of the girls in 
 that room had received all their knowledge 
 by back door confidences from older girls. 
 
 Their very first, and in fact their every 
 impression, was associated with the most 
 vulgar ideas, and it was shocking to hear 
 matters in any way related to these publicly 
 discussed by the teacher. 
 
 Information given in a straightforward 
 way when they first began to comprehend 
 these matters would have surrounded the 
 whole subject with a very different atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 Howbeit, the mothers who intend doing 
 this for their children must needs begin 
 early, or they will find the matter taken out
 
 164 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 of their hands by enterprising schoolmates, 
 before the children have been in school a 
 term. 
 
 By the time that another generation has 
 passed away, if we do not look well to condi- 
 tions, our school children will have arrived 
 at the same condition as that described of 
 the French children by a plain-spoken 
 author, they will be taught that "It is manly 
 to be nasty," and the morals of the whole 
 nation will be permeated with the same ele- 
 ment. 
 
 The freedom of the Germans in these 
 things is somewhat shocking to American 
 ears, but it is far better to treat them phil- 
 osophically than to vilify them after the 
 American fashion. 
 
 The teacher who would really benefit the 
 girls under her care, could do no grander 
 work than to send them out with a pure and 
 noble conception of their own creation and 
 destiny. 
 
 Convince them that the mission of moth-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 165 
 
 erhood is grand; that missing it, they have 
 missed woman's choicest blessing. 
 
 But the woman who would do this must 
 be brave as a warrior, for she will find not 
 only that the girls are shocked, but the 
 mothers also. 
 
 In this, as in all school reforms, the re- 
 formation must begin with the parents. But 
 when it is certain that the children of Ameri- 
 ca are receiving their instruction in regard 
 to the creative power in nature largely in 
 the public schools, and that it is given in 
 the most pernicious manner, cloyed with 
 the most vulgar association and suggestion, 
 how can the conscientious teacher avoid 
 feeling some responsibility for the results? 
 
 Ruth's teacher did not have the spirit of 
 a pioneer. She found the enemy within 
 as well as without, and she gave up the 
 battle. 
 
 Then when she saw girls like Ruth, fool- 
 ish, careless, ignorant, she wondered at her 
 own cowardice. 
 
 Ruth was now using each day every par-
 
 166 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ticle of vitality in her effort to supply all 
 the demands upon her time and strength. 
 She did not deny herself any of the social 
 pleasures of which she was so fond, and she 
 found enjoyment in trying her coquettish 
 arts on the young men. 
 
 Almost before she was aware of it came 
 the graduating essay and the graduating 
 dress. She had her customary struggle 
 over the dress. 
 
 One thing was certain at the outset; she 
 could never mount that platform, unless her 
 dress was just as good as that of the other 
 girls. "The other girls" meant a few of her 
 companions whose fathers' pockets were 
 very much deeper than Elder Weaver's. 
 
 Her persistence had the usual result, and 
 the dress that the pretty daughter of the 
 preacher wore was bought at the sacrifice 
 of the common necessities by the other 
 members of the family. 
 
 Ruth had taken for the subject of her 
 graduating essay, "The Lessons of Life." 
 It was not that she had been pondering long
 
 DODDS SISTER. 167 
 
 upon this subject of life's problems; she 
 selected it because it gave an impression of 
 profundity, for she was determined to have 
 nothing childish for her subject. 
 
 She was not the only one of the class 
 who had decided to instruct the audience 
 on subjects that they were much better 
 prepared to speak on than were the writers. 
 
 One of the boys would enlighten them 
 on "Can an Honest Man Be a Lawyer?" 
 another would tell about "Our Star of Des- 
 tiny;" and other similar subjects that would 
 have sent an ordinary divine into a brown 
 study adorned the program. 
 
 When Ruth had selected her subject, she 
 wrote it nicely at the top of a clean sheet 
 of paper, and then looked at it for a long 
 time, meditatively chewing her pencil. 
 Finally it began to dawn upon her that she 
 knew nothing about it; but that was no 
 obstacle; she had written a great many es- 
 says upon subjects about which she knew 
 nothing. The first and greatest thing was 
 to make a start. She would write some-
 
 168 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 thing first about the "lessons" in school; 
 then she would go on to the "life" part. It 
 went very smoothly for a while; she knew 
 something about that, and when she wrote 
 about what she knew, she did very well. 
 
 However, the struggle over that essay 
 had just begun, and when it was at last 
 finished, it bristled all over with wise say- 
 ings in search of which she had ransacked 
 volumes of essays and sermons. 
 
 The audience listened with indulgent pa- 
 tience. It is astonishing what people will 
 endure when their own children are partici- 
 pants in the program. 
 
 There was one grievous disappointment 
 to Ruth, and that was that she must see her 
 name on the elegant, satin-beribboned pro- 
 gram just plain Ruth Weaver. If it could 
 have only been Alice, or May, or Mamie, 
 so that she could have had it printed" Alys" 
 or "Mayme" it would have had so much 
 more "tone." Even if it had been a middle 
 name it would have answered nicely. "Miss 
 R. Alys Weaver" would have been quite the
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 169 
 
 thing. But the absence of the unique and 
 picturesque in just "Ruth" was a reflection 
 on that artistic program. 
 
 When commencement was over and 
 Ruth's school days were ended, she was 
 exultant. Now would come the promised 
 year with Auntie May. The little wardrobe 
 was gathered together, and she gave a part- 
 ing kiss to the flock of brothers and sisters, 
 and with a light heart passed out from the 
 minister's home. She would never come 
 again except for very short visits, and it 
 brought a feeling of sadness to the mother's 
 heart as she saw her daughter's glad eager- 
 ness to go. It would have been a comfort 
 to have seen a tear for this parting from 
 home and mother; but Ruth had been ac- 
 customed all her young life to consider her- 
 self alone, and the mother, who had always 
 sacrificed her own comfort for the daugh- 
 ter, found that the daughter valued her very 
 lightly, and the home that had been used 
 merely for her indulgence, and had never
 
 170 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 claimed anything from her, must expect no 
 affectionate grief at her departure. 
 
 She was now a full-fledged young lady, 
 and Auntie May's home was to be the scene 
 of her future career as a maiden. This lux- 
 urious home of Mrs. Nelson's had been the 
 fairy-land of her childhood. She had 
 longed for years to leave the humble par- 
 sonage. 
 
 Auntie May had lost her little ones when 
 they were infants, and would gladly have 
 opened her heart and home to her brother's 
 child. 
 
 "How I would like to take that child! 
 Wouldn't I dress her though!" She had 
 made this remark in Ruth's presence, little 
 realizing what encouragement it gave to 
 her discontent. 
 
 "No, May, you can't have her. Our 
 home is full, but there is not one too many." 
 
 "You will come when you are through 
 school and stay a year, won't you Ruth?'' 
 
 And the little girl never forgot her prom- 
 ise.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 171 
 
 Now Auntie May was a woman devoted 
 to society and style. She had in her hus- 
 band a sympathetic companion, whose love 
 of display was almost equal to her own. 
 Their home was the scene of constant 
 gayety, and this life appealed very strongly 
 to Ruth. 
 
 Since her marriage Mrs. Nelson had 
 never known what economy meant, and her 
 gifts to the girl had gone far towards en- 
 abling her to maintain a proper standing 
 amongst her associates. 
 
 This condition of things, however, was 
 now sadly altered, and in the business de- 
 pression that had ruined so many around 
 him, Mr. Nelson had been barely able to 
 maintain a show of their former style of 
 living. The relations between himself and 
 wife were not as pleasant as they were 
 when neither was compelled to restrain the 
 desire for display, and there were frequent 
 scenes over the bills. 
 
 All in vain did he explain and entreat, 
 then storm and swear. She thought he was
 
 172 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 very disagreeable, and insisted that it was 
 very unreasonable to expect her to give up 
 so small a matter as a new style of hat, 
 when he indulged in the expensive luxury 
 of smoking. 
 
 These storms over the bills did not shock 
 Ruth in the least. They reminded her of 
 the battles she had fought at home, and she 
 wondered if all men were so mean with 
 their money. Auntie May was certainly 
 angelic to bear it so calmly. 
 
 Now that Ruth had come with her limited 
 wardrobe, the question was still more 
 grave, but she would manage somehow. 
 Who could tell what they might not be able 
 to do in a year's time for a pretty girl like 
 Ruth? She had every marriageable man in 
 town summed up and ticketed. As soon as 
 Ruth came she began a rehearsal of the dif- 
 ferent possibilities, and together they 
 planned their campaign. 
 
 Ruth felt no reluctance in laying her 
 heart open to Auntie May, for she felt no 
 fear of her criticisms.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 173 
 
 That Ruth could discuss marriage with 
 such sang froid, at first rather startled Mrs. 
 Nelson but finally amused her. She intro- 
 duced her neice into the young society of 
 the town, and she immediately became a 
 great favorite with the gentlemen. 
 
 From their catalogue of possibilities they 
 selected Robert Douglas, who was to be 
 the victim of the first campaign. He was 
 a man of thirty odd years, and a lawyer of 
 marked success. He had inherited consid- 
 erable wealth, and had bright prospects for 
 enlarging his fortune. He was an educated 
 and cultured man, and they considered him 
 in every way a most desirable match. 
 
 "Don't you think that you had better join 
 the Browning club, Ruth? His sister is the 
 president, and they are very literary people. 
 It will never do not to be literary to begin 
 with." 
 
 "O, I suppose so; I don't want to in the 
 least. I thought I was through with all that 
 horrid stuff when I left school, and that
 
 174 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 we were just to have a good time now. But 
 of course I must be literary." 
 
 "I know, dear, it's something of a bore, 
 but it would never do not to be literary a 
 little. We won't have to go every week. I 
 only go occasionally myself." 
 
 "You will have to go oftener now, Auntie, 
 and tell them I enjoy it so much that I fairly 
 drag you there." 
 
 "Ruth, you promise to out-general me." 
 
 It was at Mrs. Nelson's home that the 
 enemy's strongholds were first attacked. A 
 new gown was procured for the occasion, 
 and hours were spent at the piano in prepa- 
 ration for the first appearance. 
 
 It was not until after the guests had ar- 
 rived that Mr. Nelson understood their lit- 
 tle game, as he called it. He smiled in a 
 cynical way as he soliloquized : 
 
 "Now Douglas is no fool. He won't bite. 
 May will find her little game won't work 
 with him." 
 
 Mrs. Nelson herself had some fears for 
 the success of her long cherished plans. In
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 175 
 
 the first place she had some apprehension 
 lest Ruth might be attracted by some of the 
 gayer, younger men, and let some silly pref- 
 erence stand in the way of her own best 
 good: or lest she might not exert herself 
 to her best efforts; or possibly lest she 
 might not understand just the proper 
 way to do it. Her fears were all 
 in vain. There was no more danger of Ruth 
 Weaver suddenly finding that her heart had 
 rebelled against her judgment and was lead- 
 ing her to sacrifice her worldly interests to 
 the joys of love, than there was of her so- 
 phisticated Auntie May advising it; nor 
 was there any danger of her not knowing 
 all about the different methods. She had 
 studied them too long and diligently to be 
 found wanting at such a critical time. 
 
 She knew the exact sweep of the eye-lash 
 that was the most effective; she knew just 
 when to dimple her cheeks, and just when 
 to smile; she had tested these little arts 
 when she still wore short dresses, and vied
 
 176 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 with the other girls for attention from the 
 schoolboys. 
 
 She had, moreover, the art of arts; she 
 could employ every one of these seemingly 
 girlish ways with a perfect knowledge of 
 their effect, and yet impress the man with 
 whom she talked with the idea that they 
 were all the unconscious expressions of 
 maiden modesty and sweetness. Even Mr. 
 Nelson thought her a sweet little thing 
 whom it would be a great pity for May to 
 spoil. 
 
 Another of Auntie May's fears was lest 
 Mr. Douglas, who was known to be not 
 over sensitive to feminine charms, might 
 not be as responsive as she hoped. Well, 
 they would try him first. If that did not 
 succeed, she would know better how to pro- 
 ceed next time. 
 
 It was after supper when Mr. Nelson 
 came into the parlor. He stopped short 
 and looked at the scene at the end of the 
 piano. 
 
 Ruth was leaning on her arms, with her
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 177 
 
 clasped hands reached above her head to 
 the top of the piano. She was looking 
 down, smiling and talking the merest noth- 
 ings with girlish effervescence. Opposite 
 her stood the lawyer, with a look of admira- 
 tion on his face that he had never seen there 
 before. 
 
 "If Douglas hasn't bit ! I'll be !" and 
 
 the rest of the sentence was better smother- 
 ed before his guests. 
 
 After the company had departed, Mrs. 
 Nelson and Ruth sat a long time talking it 
 over. Their verdict was that it was a great 
 success. Ruth repeated everything that 
 would be at all indicative of the impression 
 that she had made, and asked if that pose 
 that she had taken at the end of the piano 
 was not effective. 
 
 "Immensely," her auntie assured her. 
 "You must have given that some practice, 
 Ruth." 
 
 "O, yes, I have. I consider that one of 
 my best." 
 
 12
 
 178 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "Well, how do you like him? He is fine, 
 I think." 
 
 "O, he is all right." 
 
 Ruth had been so engaged making an 
 impression herself, that she really had not 
 thought much about the man. 
 
 "O, but I am so tired, Auntie! It seems 
 as if I could scarcely walk up stairs." 
 
 "Well, don't come down in the morning 
 until you please. We will have to get 
 around in time for Mrs. Wilson's luncheon, 
 but there is no need for you to get up be- 
 fore noon." 
 
 "I don't know as that will make much 
 difference, for I am just awfully tired all 
 the time. I thought that when I came here 
 I should certainly get rested, but I don't." 
 
 "O, well, you must get used to that. Wo- 
 men are always more or less tired unless 
 they are very common. If you continue to 
 succeed as well as you did to-night with Mr. 
 Douglas, you will have nothing to do but 
 rest." 
 
 If Mr. Nelson was astonished at the ease
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 179 
 
 with which his wife and niece captured the 
 lawyer, he was still more so that he con- 
 tinued to show the same interest 
 
 He remarked to his wife. 
 
 "That gets me, that a man like Douglas 
 will run around after a chit of a girl like 
 Ruth, and let you folks work him in that 
 style. Why, he's one of the shrewdest law- 
 yers around here, and I've known him to 
 see through schemes at the caucuses when 
 the rest of us fellows were blind as bats. 
 Now he's letting himself be made a fool of 
 by a couple of women." 
 
 "I don't see the use, Richard, in your 
 talking in that way. Why do you call a 
 man a fool, simply because he likes a pretty 
 girl? Ruth is certainly very charming, and 
 Mr. Douglas may consider himself fortu- 
 nate if he gets such a lovely wife. I'm not 
 at all certain that Ruth would have him." 
 
 A significant grunt was all the rejoinder 
 that Mr. Nelson made as he sipped his cof- 
 fee. They were alone at the breakfast table,
 
 180 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 as Ruth seldom came down in time for the 
 morning meal. 
 
 It did certainly appear that Mr. Nelson's 
 prophecy that his friend would fall an easy 
 prey to the wiles of his wife and niece would 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 All through the summer months Ruth 
 was devoting her entire energy to the 
 cause. The mornings were spent in bed, or 
 in discussing the next new costume, or in 
 complaining attempts to prepare for the 
 next meeting of the Browning Club. 
 
 "Do you know, Auntie, Mr. Douglas 
 asked me what I thought of Browning's 
 poem on "The Book," and if I didn't think 
 that passage about Art speaking truth 
 obliquely, or some such thing, was particu- 
 larly fine. I declare, Auntie, I was perfect- 
 ly rattled for a minute. I didn't know what 
 to answer. I didn't just want to confess 
 that I had never read it when he thinks that 
 I have been in absorbing study of Brown- 
 ing ever since I have been here." 
 
 "Well, what did you say?"
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 181 
 
 "O, I said 'Do explain that to me. I have 
 often wondered just what Browning meant 
 by that. He is so obscure.' So he ex- 
 plained it all to me in the most obliging 
 way. I must read it now so that I can quote 
 a line or two some day and tell him it is so 
 beautiful since he explained it to me." 
 
 "Ruth, you are cute. What a true dis- 
 ciple to the new idea you are ! I was a great 
 deal older than you before I discovered that 
 wise men do love a woman that they can 
 explain things to." 
 
 "I never pretend to know anything foi 
 real sure with him, and he is just lovely 
 about explaining things. In fact, Auntie 
 May, I don't know what we should talk 
 about some of the time, if I didn't keep a 
 lot of things on hand to be explained. When 
 I get short I always ask something about 
 law and that keeps him going quite a 
 while." 
 
 "That will all do very well for a starter, 
 Ruth, but we must do something to bring 
 matters to a crisis. He has been coming
 
 182 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 here for three months, and things seem no 
 nearer to an understanding than before." 
 
 "O, I can soon manage that when the 
 proper time comes. We are going driving 
 to-morrow night, and it will be lovely moon- 
 light." 
 
 "I see I can trust you, Ruth. I thought 
 you would need some pointers. I have been 
 picking them up for years, and have been 
 in society constantly, but, I declare, you 
 can give them to me. Where did you learn 
 all this?" 
 
 "O, in school." 
 
 "In school? What do you mean?" 
 
 "O, we used to tell each other how we 
 worked those things on the boys, and we 
 got the benefit of one another's experience. 
 There are a variety of ways. It all depends 
 on the boy and the time, Auntie." 
 
 "Well, I declare, you girls are too wise for 
 your age. You certainly belong to a differ- 
 ent generation from what I did. I see you 
 are fully capable of taking care of yourself.'' 
 
 There was consternation in the camp at
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 183 
 
 Auntie May's when Ruth received a note 
 from Mr. Douglas saying that his mother's 
 sudden illness had made it necessary for 
 him to accompany her to Chicago, and he 
 feared that he might not be able to return 
 for some time. 
 
 "How disgusting!" exclaimed Ruth. "If 
 I had known that I could just as well have 
 had everything arranged before he went" 
 
 There was nothing to do but to accept 
 the inevitable ; and when a letter came later 
 from Mr. Douglas Ruth complained bitterly 
 at her fate in being compelled to write. 
 When she had curls and blue eyes and 
 smiles at her command she could manage 
 him all right, but a page of paper remote 
 from herself was a different thing. 
 
 Her writing since she had left school had 
 consisted almost entirely of a few very short 
 letters to her mother, and some more 
 lengthy ones to the girls at home. Mr. 
 Douglas figured largely in these. She had 
 to rely chiefly on Auntie May's devices for 
 filling out a page, and when Mr. Douglas,
 
 184 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 instead of returning in the winter months, 
 had taken his mother to Florida, her dis- 
 gust knew no bounds. 
 
 "I had planned everything to have the 
 wedding at the Holidays, and now he says 
 that he don't know when he can return. 
 His mother must be very childish to want 
 him with her all the time." 
 
 "They say she is very weak, and he was 
 always devoted to her." 
 
 "Well, there is nothing to be done but to 
 have a good time until he does come back, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "I don't know, Ruth; I am really afraid 
 that we shall have to do something. Rich- 
 ard told me last night that they had lost 
 considerable by that last failure, and that 
 money would be exceedingly scarce. I do 
 wish it was as it used to be, and that 
 I could do for you everything that I 
 want to, but really I can not see how we 
 are going to manage about your new wrap 
 and winter clothing. You couldn't get work 
 in the school at your home, could you?
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 185 
 
 But of course you must be here when 
 Mr. Douglas comes back. It would be rank 
 folly not to follow that up. O, I have an 
 idea ! Milly Sanders is not going to be able 
 to teach alter Christmas, and I believe we 
 could get that school for you." 
 
 "O, Auntie May! How ever can I? I 
 don't know as I can get a certificate." 
 
 "Why, you certainly can, Ruth. You 
 were always considered a good scholar, and 
 it will not be for long, you know. He will 
 certainly be back by the Holidays. Richard 
 said that he had an important case coming 
 on in the January term of court, and he 
 will have to be here, and it may be that you 
 will not have to teach more than a term. I 
 am dreadfully sorry, Ruth, but I know there 
 is no use asking Richard for anything more. 
 You know that he is really so liberal when 
 he does have money. You might just as 
 well give up the battle at once, if you can 
 not have a proper wardrobe. You can 
 board with us, and I can help you some. 
 You know you will need so many things. I
 
 186 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 am sure that Richard can get the place for 
 you." 
 
 Ruth finally decided to make the attempt. 
 When Uncle Richard was approached, he 
 was very willing to try what he could do 
 for her. 
 
 "If it isn't promised already, I know I can 
 get the place for you, for I have a pull with 
 several of those fellows on the school 
 board." The place was not promised, and 
 Mr. Nelson employed his "pull" with good 
 effect. Thus it came about that at the be- 
 ginning of the winter term Ruth found her- 
 self in the school room again. 
 
 Some wondered at her election, for she 
 had had no "experience" nor special prepa- 
 ration, and there were girls of their own 
 town and school much better prepared for 
 the work. 
 
 When the members of the school board 
 were asked about it, no one seemed to know 
 anything about the circumstances; in real- 
 ity they knew exactly how it happened. 
 They did not feel free to confess this knowl-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 187 
 
 edge, nor to expose the members who had 
 been influential in the matter. There was 
 no knowing how soon they might want a 
 like favor themselves. They felt no personal 
 responsibility. 
 
 Conscience is so much more callous, col- 
 lectively, than it is individually. 
 
 When Ruth first stepped into the room 
 where she was to preside as teacher, there 
 was rank rebellion in her heart. How dread- 
 ful that she must do this just because she 
 must have a new wrap this winter. Auntie 
 May said it would cost fifty dollars to get 
 what she really ought to have. She would 
 have to teach more than a month to earn that. 
 Why couldn't her father have sent her that 
 much money? It was decidedly mean of 
 him. Uncle Richard was a regular miser, 
 too; and if Mr. Douglas' inconsiderate old 
 mother hadn't gotten sick just at the wrong 
 time she could have been in Florida herself 
 now, instead of being shut up with those 
 hateful children. It was by a very great 
 effort that she kept back the tears, while the
 
 188 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 children in the room were all watching her 
 face, trying to decipher their probable fate 
 for the coming term. 
 
 Ruth's forebodings of her abhorrence of 
 her work were more than justified be- 
 fore many weeks had gone by. Every 
 night she returned from her work with ach- 
 ing back and tingling nerves. Pandemo- 
 nium reigned in the school room. She heart- 
 ily hated every one of the little animals that 
 tortured her, and they reciprocated the feel- 
 ing with a manifest energy that did credit 
 to the age that has been called the animal 
 age of childhood. 
 
 The friends of the other candidates point- 
 ed with great satisfaction to her failure, and 
 hoped to see the position soon vacant again. 
 
 When Ruth drew her first month's pay, 
 it did not seem possible to her that all those 
 days of misery should have been necessary 
 to produce just one fur cape. 
 
 "Auntie, I won't have to spend it all for 
 just a cape, will -I?" 
 
 "Why, certainly, dear; that will not be
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 189 
 
 much to put in a wrap. You can't begin to 
 get anything that will answer for less." 
 
 This was said in the presence of Uncle 
 Richard. 
 
 "Learning the value of a dollar, hey? 
 Didn't know they came so high." 
 
 Ruth thought that was brutal, but Uncle 
 Richard really looked at it in the light of a 
 favor to his friend Douglas. 
 
 "I wish some one had taught May what a 
 dollar costs before she was married. She 
 hasn't the least conception." 
 
 At last the time was at hand for Mr. 
 Douglas' return. Then one noon Mr. Nel- 
 son announced that the mother had died 
 and that they were bringing her home for 
 burial. 
 
 "Now, that is too bad," said Auntie May. 
 
 The expression sounded very sympathet- 
 ic, but the sympathy was for Ruth. She 
 foresaw in this another obstacle to their 
 plans. 
 
 Mr. Douglas was home for several weeks 
 before he called again. The Nelson home
 
 190 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 did not have as much attraction for him as 
 before his departure, for the insipidity of 
 Ruth's letters had banished many of the im- 
 pressions left by her bright smiles. 
 
 "Now, Auntie, you must help me out. I 
 don't want Mr. Douglas to have any idea 
 why I went to teaching. You must give 
 him the right impression. I saw him to- 
 day, and he is going to call tonight." 
 
 Auntie May needed no instructions to do 
 the right thing in this regard. 
 
 Ruth was in her room when he was ush- 
 ered into the parlor that evening, and 
 Auntie May thought this a good oppor- 
 tunity to make a few remarks that she had 
 prepared. 
 
 "Ruth is resting," she said, "but I will ^all 
 her." 
 
 "O, do not disturb her if she is resting." 
 
 "She would never forgive me if I did not. 
 She gets very tired teaching. She has such 
 an independent nature that she simply 
 would not consent to let us do what we 
 wanted to for her. She insisted on teaching,
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 191 
 
 and it is a terrible tax on her strength. She 
 throws her whole soul into the work, and I 
 think that it is too much for a frail girl like 
 her to be shut up with all those children. I 
 can not persuade her to give it up. But I 
 will call her. You must never let her know 
 what I have said." 
 
 In a few moments Ruth appeared, and 
 Mr. Douglas was impressed with the truth 
 of these remarks, when he saw how very 
 listless and worn she was. But this did not 
 last long; in a few moments the old anima- 
 tion returned. Lassitude may do very well 
 to create sympathy, but it soon grows wear- 
 isome. When Mr. Douglas was leaving, 
 Auntie May came into the hall and, throw- 
 ing her arms around Ruth's shoulders, said : 
 
 "You must come often, Mr. Douglas, and 
 cheer up our girlie. She gives so much of 
 her vitality to that school that she is really 
 depriving herself of society. I don't know 
 when I have seen her enjoy herself as she 
 has tonight."
 
 192 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 Mr. Douglas assured them that he would 
 be delighted to come often. 
 
 "Well, that was a good evening's work, 
 Ruth; I feel as if we had the thing started 
 again." This was Auntie May's good-night 
 remark. 
 
 The promise to come often was fulfilled, 
 and inasmuch as Ruth insisted that, being 
 absorbed in her work, she really cared noth- 
 ing for society, he found a growing attrac- 
 tion in the Nelson home. 
 
 Ruth realized what it might mean to fail 
 in her plans, and her ardor in the undertak- 
 ing was renewed. 
 
 "Now, Ruth, you must not let this go on 
 any longer. You must bring things to a fo- 
 cus at once. There is no telling what may 
 happen. His sister may get sick next. It 
 really frightened me the way things looked 
 for a while." 
 
 "Well, I was just going to suggest that 
 you go away, Auntie. * I shall have to have 
 him alone, you know."
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 193 
 
 "I will go off for a week, dear, and give 
 you the best of chances." 
 
 So Auntie May informed Mr. Douglas 
 that she would leave Ruth for a week, and 
 she hoped that he would see that she did not 
 suffer from loneliness. 
 
 The first evening that he called, Ruth 
 had her plans all laid. The daintiest of cos- 
 tumes and the sweetest of smiles were pre- 
 pared, and the delighted way in which she 
 came forward and gave him her hand, say- 
 ing that she was just perishing from loneli- 
 ness, and that it was just lovely of him to 
 come, quite charmed him. 
 
 She gave him a seat opposite her, over in 
 front of the grate; then she leaned forward 
 in a most bewitching way, with the light re- 
 flecting from the large pink lamp shade 
 upon her fair head. 
 
 After a few moments the conversation 
 turned upon some of the new actresses that 
 were appearing, and Ruth went to bring a 
 magazine that contained some of their 
 
 13
 
 194 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 pictures. She sat down on a low stool be- 
 side him and opened the book. 
 
 "Isn't that the loveliest face? I just envy 
 her," she said, as she opened the book to 
 the photogravures. "I just envy her, she is 
 so sweet." 
 
 Mr. Douglas could never have given a 
 lucid account of what followed, but Ruth 
 could have told you just what came next 
 through each of the successive steps by 
 which she led this astute lawyer. 
 
 It was long after his usual hour when he 
 left the Nelson home that night, and he was 
 really a little surprised when he considered 
 that the sweet little creature that he had left 
 behind was his promised wife. He actually 
 could not tell just how it all happened, but 
 he certainly was glad that it had happened. 
 
 "Well, what success?" was Auntie May's 
 first question on her return. 
 
 "O, he came beautifully, Auntie. It was 
 all done the very first evening. He's ever 
 so much easier than those horrid young fel-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 195 
 
 lows that act as if they were doing you a 
 favor." 
 
 Ruth, however, had not accomplished all 
 of her plans. She wanted to convince Mr. 
 Douglas of the desirability of having the 
 wedding in March, as that would allow her 
 to resign her position in the school. She 
 had an uncomfortable apprehension that the 
 school board might accomplish her release 
 in a less graceful manner, although her un- 
 cle assured her that he would see to it that 
 she held the position as long as she chose. 
 
 She could not tell Mr. Douglas the truth, 
 for Auntie May had repeatedly dwelt upon 
 her devotion to her work. Accordingly, she 
 laid the matter before her. 
 
 "He does not seem to think that there is 
 any possibility of such a thing, and I can't 
 make him see any necessity of it. I really 
 believe that he does not seriously consider 
 our having the wedding before next fall." 
 
 "O, we must have it at least by June, 
 Ruth. I'll try what I can do." 
 
 But even Auntie May's clever strategies
 
 196 THE EVOLUTION OP 
 
 failed of their purpose, and Ruth closed her 
 winter term of school with anticipations of 
 another three months of misery. 
 
 The criticisms on her work had been so 
 emphatic that the board talked the matter 
 over in a formal way; but as the member 
 who had secured her election insisted that 
 she be retained there was nothing done 
 about it, and the helpless children were 
 doomed to another term under this teacher, 
 whose nerves were so racked that every 
 movement of theirs tortured her. It would 
 have been a greater kindness in the board 
 to have paid her dry goods bill and let them 
 revel in the sunshine in the park. 
 
 But even a school term will come to an 
 end, and at last Ruth was free. The hours 
 in the school room were not the only ones 
 that were a tax on her strength. The ques- 
 tion of what to do to entertain her future 
 husband in his frequent calls was one of 
 vital importance. 
 
 There is no need of preparation for a pair 
 of bona fide lovers, but the affection in this
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 197 
 
 case was so entirely on one side that even 
 reasonably responsive submission to his 
 caresses soon grew wearisome to her, and 
 she preferred to lead him on in conversation 
 on subjects where he could instruct and she 
 could listen. 
 
 "What shall we talk about tonight. 
 Auntie? Can't you give me a leader?" 
 
 "Get Richard's North American Review. 
 There is an article on George Eliot in it. 
 You know something about that subject. 
 Get some questions ready." 
 
 "How can I ever stand this, Auntie, when 
 I am married? I won't have you to help 
 me, and I shall surely perish." 
 
 "O, no you won't. He will go down town 
 evenings in a very short time. You know 
 there is a honeymoon for just such men as 
 he is, and when that wanes you will find that 
 he will not trouble you much. Richard 
 goes away almost every night now, al- 
 though he used to stay at home a great deal 
 when we were first married. I think from 
 what I know of you that you can be trusted
 
 198 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 to manage all those small points when once 
 you are married. I am sure you have done 
 beautifully so far. It is a perfect marvel to 
 me where you learned all those things." 
 
 "I am sure I can't tell you, Auntie. It 
 seems as if I always knew them. Why, I 
 heard the older girls tell about them when 
 I was in the primary, and we used to think it 
 was great fun to practice them when we 
 were older." 
 
 "Well, there is one thing certain. No 
 woman is likely to be imposed on when she 
 knows as much as you do. But we must try 
 some way to get that wedding settled for 
 June. June weddings are lovely, although 
 I suppose that he will be scandalized at the 
 idea of the wedding so soon after his moth- 
 er's death." 
 
 "Then you must help me. Just tell him 
 that I shall go away as soon as school is 
 out if we are not married." 
 
 On the first occasion Auntie May told 
 Mr. Douglas that she was utterly unhappy 
 at the thought of spending the summer
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 199 
 
 alone. She had become so much accustomed 
 to dear Ruth's society, and now her mother 
 insisted on her coming home as soon as 
 school was over. 
 
 "I don't know, but I shall have to appeal 
 to you, Mr. Douglas, to help me out. I am 
 sure the summer without her will be dread- 
 ful." 
 
 "Now, Auntie, you are making a great 
 mistake. Men are not so dependent upon 
 the mere joys of society as we giddy women 
 are. You don't suppose that Robert is go- 
 ing to pine for me this summer." 
 
 And she gave such a sweet little laugh, 
 and looked up with such a bewitching air, 
 that Robert was tempted to kiss her in- 
 stanter, regardless of all company. He in- 
 sisted instead that he would miss her im- 
 mensely, and that he must devise some 
 plans for keeping her. 
 
 With some further suggestions from 
 Auntie May, it was finally decided that the 
 marriage should occur in a very quiet man- 
 ner in June.
 
 200 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "I don't see why this could not have been 
 settled before just as well. We will have 
 to hurry abominably now," Auntie May re- 
 marked, as soon as they were alone. 
 
 And now began the usual preparation 
 that is thought necessary for a girl who is 
 about to be married. Every possibility of 
 obtaining the necessary dollars was can- 
 vassed, but it was evident that there was 
 going to be a painful shortage. 
 
 As soon as the school house door was 
 closed behind Ruth at night she was 
 plunged into the excitement of shopping 
 and dress-making. 
 
 But the bills mounted up in a most shock- 
 ing manner. She could not reconcile the 
 difference between the value of a ten-dollar 
 bill as represented by the amount of labor 
 it required from her to earn it, and the 
 amount of merchandise she was able to pro- 
 cure with it. 
 
 "What shall I do, Auntie? I haven't paid 
 for that mull and organdie yet. I haven't 
 but two pairs of shoes, and you thought I
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 201 
 
 ought at least to have four, and it will take 
 every cent I can hope for from the school 
 to pay the dressmaker and milliner. There 
 will be at least fifty dollars at the dry goods 
 store besides." 
 
 "Well, cheer up, dear. Just remember 
 this is your last struggle. But you can not 
 do without a single one of those dresses. It 
 would be ruinous for you to get married 
 with a shabby trousseau. Now, when you 
 need anything hereafter you won't have to 
 consider each penny so closely." 
 
 "Well, that don't dispose of the present 
 troubles. There is no doubt that I need 
 every one of those things. I will have them, 
 and I do wish that I had a little of that here- 
 after money on hand. O, I have an idea, 
 Auntie. Why wouldn't this be just the 
 scheme? Can't you have them charge that 
 dry goods bill to you, and then hold them 
 off until I can pay you?" 
 
 It was considered a -very brilliant idea, 
 and an extra dress was added to the list im- 
 mediately. Each day was crowded full of
 
 202 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 excitement and work, until at last the long- 
 desired June came, and only the final prep- 
 arations remained. 
 
 Ruth longed for an elaborate affair, with 
 a bower of roses and a table full of presents, 
 but it was one of the points that Mr. Doug- 
 las had insisted upon, that out of respect to 
 his mother it be a very quiet affair. 
 
 "Do not bring but two of the children," 
 Ruth wrote to her mother. "Of course, 
 papa will have to be here if possible, or else 
 Uncle Richard will have to give me away." 
 
 Ruth was very much pleased that the cer- 
 emony was to be one in which the giving 
 away of the bride would be necessary. This 
 relic of feudal ideas appealed to her. She 
 looked upon it as a matter of course that 
 she must be the property of some man, and 
 that in being transferred to a husband she 
 must be formally bestowed by the former 
 proprietor. She cared nothing for that lib- 
 erty that would make her an individual ca- 
 pable of governing herself. She much pre-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 203 
 
 ferred throwing the responsibility upon 
 some one else. 
 
 The wedding day came at last, a beautiful 
 June day that a bride might consider per- 
 fect. The sun shone gloriously, and if there 
 was to be any truth in the old adage, "Hap- 
 py is the bride that the sun shines on," Ruth 
 was to be radiantly happy, for it sent a 
 shower of golden shafts on her young head. 
 
 To the little company gathered in Mrs. 
 Nelson's parlor it seemed that there was 
 every prospect of a blissful journey through 
 life for the sweet bride and manly bride- 
 groom. 
 
 There were a few suspicious ones, how- 
 ever. The bridegroom's sister, Irene, who 
 idolized her brother, and who had monop- 
 olized his attention for so many years, did 
 not feel altogether kindly toward the young 
 girl who had so successfully transferred his 
 affections to herself. The real Ruth who ex- 
 isted under the smiling exterior was well 
 understood by her. 
 
 Early in her brother's courtship, when she
 
 204 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 saw whither things were tending, she had 
 ventured to criticise Ruth to him. 
 
 "O, don't be so hard on her, sis. You 
 women are just merciless with one another." 
 
 Her woman's sense told her she was too 
 late, and she had thereafter simply main- 
 tained complete silence on the subject. She 
 saw for her brother many things of which 
 the June sunshine never hinted. 
 
 Ruth's mother stood sadly watching her 
 daughter as the minister pronounced her 
 the wife of the man beside her. Her 
 thoughts went bounding back to the night 
 when she had stood a proud, hopeful and 
 happy bride. Would this man appreciate 
 the precious charge he had in her beautiful 
 daughter? O, she would have given her 
 heart's blood to have insured happiness to 
 that daughter. 
 
 She struggled with her thoughts and her 
 tears until she had given the first kiss to the 
 young wife, then she slipped quietly out of 
 the room, and in the corner of the dark 
 cloak closet the sobs and tears burst beyond
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 205 
 
 her control. She could scarcely have told 
 why, only that a great burden of fear for 
 that dear child seemed to oppress her. 
 
 Why is it that mothers always feel this 
 sorrow when they see their daughters enter 
 upon the life of a wife? They look on re- 
 signedly enough when their sons are mar- 
 ried, but when it is the daughter there seems 
 to be a tugging at the heart strings that 
 sends them hurrying from the presence of 
 the bride, that her joy may not be damp- 
 ened by the tears. 
 
 What do they know that is sealed from 
 their daughters? A doubt came to Ruth's 
 mother then. A feeling that perhaps she 
 had failed in not acquainting her daughter 
 more with the hard, stern facts of the life 
 before her. She knew that she had done 
 just as her mother did, but here was her 
 frail, delicate daughter, worn to the very last 
 shred of strength, fragile in health for years, 
 about to become the wife of a strong, virile 
 man, and never suspecting that the life be-
 
 206 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 fore her would not be all rosy with senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Why had she hesitated to tell Ruth the 
 many things that a young wife would be 
 so much wiser to know? Why need the 
 young wife enter the married life with ideas 
 so different from the realities? Why can she 
 not have the same knowledge and the same 
 view of the nature that God has implanted 
 in men that her mother or her husband has? 
 Would it harm her? Would she not be a bet- 
 ter and a happier wife if this knowledge 
 could come with the right light that an ex- 
 perienced and loving mother could throw 
 on it? If every mother could throw from be- 
 tween herself and her daughter every ves- 
 tige of reserve and talk freely, the first year 
 of married life would not be the most crit- 
 ical, and often the most disastrous of all. 
 
 But how had this mother come through 
 it? Love, strong, pure love had been the 
 power. Would it prove the same in Ruth? 
 Would a closer knowledge of each other's 
 needs bring them at last to that oneness of
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 207 
 
 feeling that is ideal for man and wife? Per- 
 haps, if the love was there in all the full- 
 ness that the husband believed it to be, 
 but , the mother sobbed again. 
 
 Auntie May came to the door. 
 
 "Now, don't feel bad, Mary. Ruth is do- 
 ing very nicely, and she will have a lovely 
 home." 
 
 "O, I don't doubt that, May; but you 
 know she is very delicate. Perhaps she 
 don't realize " 
 
 "O, she will be all right. She is awfully 
 tired now, but then you know we were just 
 the same way when we were married. We 
 can't expect girls to be at their best at such 
 a time. She has worked constantly for 
 weeks to get ready, besides her school work, 
 but she will have a chance to rest now." 
 
 "Yes, I know; but " 
 
 "Well, let us go back to the parlor. She 
 has just what she wanted, and I am sure 
 that we couldn't have done better for her." 
 
 When Mrs. Weaver returned to the par- 
 lor all was life and vivacity again. The
 
 208 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 first few impressive moments and the first 
 congratulations, when everything threatens 
 to collapse into utter silence, were happily 
 over, and a brusque uncle of the groom 
 met her at the door. 
 
 "Well, I suppose you are like the rest of 
 the mothers ; you hate to see your daughter 
 married, and yet you wouldn't have her do 
 otherwise for the world?" 
 
 "O, yes, of course we want the girls to 
 get married, but " 
 
 "They are 'white funerals' sure enough, 
 Mrs. Weaver," put in his wife. "Mr. Doug- 
 las is always making fun of us women, just 
 because I felt so badly when our Grace was 
 married." 
 
 "Well, wife, I see no need to feel badly 
 when a girl marries Rob; he's gold way 
 through." 
 
 "It isn't Rob, William. You don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 "All right ; 111 admit that you women are 
 great big riddles." 
 
 Two hours later the bride and groom had
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 2"? 
 
 bidden farewell to their friends, and were 
 leaving for their wedding trip. 
 
 It had not been Mr. Douglas' idea to 
 leave on this trip. He much preferred to go 
 at once to their own beautiful home, where 
 his wife would find rest and quiet 
 
 Ruth was so evidently disappointed at 
 this suggestion that he had readily ac- 
 quiesced in her desire for a wedding trip. 
 
 She wished to visit some of the eastern 
 watering places of which she had read so 
 much. 
 
 "You will find them the stupidest places in 
 the world, Ruth, unless you go with a party. 
 I think they are great bores. Wouldn't you 
 like to go to the National Park now, or even 
 take a trip to Alaska?" 
 
 But nothing would satisfy Ruth except 
 some eastern summer resort. The simple 
 pleasure to be derived from viewing nature's 
 living wonders did not in the least appeal 
 to her. 
 
 As she leaned back on the cushions of the 
 parlor car, she felt that ever)' trial of her 
 
 14
 
 210 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 life was past. At last she had what she de- 
 sired, and now there was nothing left but 
 enjoyment. She laid her head back with a 
 long drawn sigh. 
 
 "Are you tired, dearest?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "Let me put your hat in the rack. You 
 can rest so much better. It is going to be a 
 long, tiresome ride." 
 
 The kind thoughtfulness brought a smile 
 of appreciation. 
 
 She closed her eyes for a moment. Every 
 nerve was tingling; every muscle was ach- 
 ing; she felt that she would scream if any 
 one were to speak to her suddenly. Her 
 hand lay on the arm of the chair. Her hus- 
 band laid his own tenderly over it. 
 
 She gave a start, opened her eyes, and 
 then drew her hand away. 
 
 She was too miserably sick and tired to 
 endure a caress, much less to respond to it. 
 
 A look of surprise came into her hus- 
 band's face, which was quickly followed by
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 211 
 
 a flush of mortification and anger. He 
 turned and looked out of the window for a 
 long time without speaking. 
 
 And thus she started on her married life.
 
 212 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 WOMANHOOD. 
 
 "All love that hath not friendship for its base 
 Is like a mansion built upon the sand." 
 
 The honeymoon season was far in the 
 past. Now, when there was any moonlight 
 visible at all in the Douglas household it 
 was shed from a very ordinary moon, ex- 
 ceedingly uninteresting except for the wry 
 faces that it insisted on making, betokening 
 sometimes dry weather and sometimes wet; 
 or quite possibly it was encircled by a ring 
 prophetic of coming storms ; or else it sent 
 a lurid light slanting across their vision that 
 told of days to come that were long and hot 
 and dusty. 
 
 But that limpid, silvery affair that shone 
 in delicate crescent on the heads of bride 
 and groom was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 To the husband that honeymoon season 
 had been shorter far than to the bride. The 
 domestic heavens were soon clouded, and
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 213 
 
 he saw with dismay the bright orb disap- 
 pear, together with her attendant stars, un- 
 til now scarcely one was to be seen; certain 
 it was that Venus did not shed her spark- 
 ling rays upon them, for she had trailed 
 after the honeymoon in a disgracefully rap- 
 id manner. 
 
 And now, when the enchantment of moon 
 and stars was gone, and the plain light of 
 day finally shone on him again, he saw with 
 clearer vision just what the other days that 
 were to come might have in store for him. 
 
 He was a man of the dispassionate nature 
 that views marriage from the standpoint of 
 common sense. He had always meant to 
 marry some day and rear his family around 
 his hearth, but he was aware that mistakes 
 were common, and he had it well fixed in 
 mind to guard against such failure by care- 
 ful choice amongst the maidens of his ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 He had considered the matter well, and 
 could have told you his preference in size, 
 in color, in age, in temperament, and was
 
 214 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ready, now that he had passed the folly of 
 youth, to choose this companion of his life. 
 
 He had heard much about choosing a 
 wife. He would have been loath to admit 
 that he intended to look her over with a 
 view to possession, just as he would 
 before he purchased a horse. He would 
 have been farther yet from doing it. Men 
 rarely choose a wife, it is but fair to pre- 
 sume, when we compare the much-chosen 
 ones with those that are left unmolested. 
 Fate is very apt to take men by the nape of 
 the neck and cram some Miss otherwise 
 difficult to dispose of down their throats. 
 Fate has a mighty grip on humanity. No 
 doubt in this way it keeps the balance even 
 through the generations, and in this way 
 prevents the division of human kind into 
 two great classes of fools and wise. 
 
 Robert Douglas did not reckon well, if 
 he thought that age would so forestall the 
 foolishness of masculine susceptibility that 
 at thirty he could, with cool and deliberate
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 215 
 
 wisdom, choose a wife. He could do it no 
 better then than at twenty. 
 
 Amongst the many homely truths that 
 have been formulated for us by our ances- 
 tors, there is none truer than this, "There 
 is no fool like an old fool," unless, alas! we 
 are compelled to amend it to read, "two 
 old fools." Melancholy is the truth that a 
 man's wisdom in choosing a wife seems to 
 be in inverse ratio to his years. 
 
 Robert Douglas, in the ordinary affairs 
 of life, was far from that condition in which 
 men do deeds at which their brothers scoff. 
 
 If in moments when the burden seemed 
 insufferable he blamed himself for blindness, 
 he need but look around him to know that 
 he was not the first wise man who let his 
 wisdom go to the winds when he was most 
 in need. We look with greater pity on these 
 men, who, blessed with much that is good, 
 yet have something that is not the best in 
 womankind. It may be but a divine dispen- 
 sation ; for while nature and art combine to 
 produce these women, it is best that they be
 
 216 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 disposed of where they will do the least 
 harm. Let the men who are rich in other 
 blessings take care of them. 
 
 While this may be very good and very 
 just as a universal principle, yet to Robert 
 Douglas it was most unsatisfactory. 
 
 He wanted his love to have "friendship for 
 its base," and he could not conceive, al- 
 though two years of his married life had 
 rolled away, why the girl who had seemed 
 so absorbed in a beautiful bit of Browning 
 now turned wearily from any suggestion to 
 read more of the mystic poet. He could not 
 blame himself; the change was in the girl. 
 Certain it was that in the days of the court- 
 ship there had been every promise of a beau- 
 tiful friendship growing up between them; 
 and he had pictured the evenings at the 
 fireside where the sweet young wife would 
 be happy in being led along the paths of 
 beauty where his superior knowledge would 
 render him a fitting guide. 
 
 Although his experience had taught him 
 that our ideals are seldom realized, the real-
 
 DODO'S SISTER. 217 
 
 ity of the long cherished home life appalled 
 him. His fireside had been to him, as it al- 
 ways is to men of poetic temperaments, a 
 haven where he retired for rest and enjoy- 
 ment; but now when his wife was there 
 their worlds were as far apart as the poles. 
 She sat absorbed in a story that to him 
 would be inane, repulsive, or even painful; 
 or reading with minute care instructions on 
 "How to keep young" ; or studying with in- 
 tense interest the latest sweep of skirt, or 
 build of choker. 
 
 He was left to dream his dreams, as much 
 alone as he was before she came; indeed, 
 more alone; for then he had ideals, now so 
 evidently false in the face of the hard facts 
 before him. 
 
 The beautiful sentiment in "Locksley 
 Hall" was ruined for him, for involuntarily 
 the "Amy" would take on the flower face of 
 the wife opposite to him, and he would con- 
 sider Tennyson mighty lucky in his first dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 But not often was he allowed even this
 
 218 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 ghost of contentment, for even the novel 
 and the fashion plate and the instructions 
 on facial massage soon wearied, and the de- 
 mand for social pleasures, that were life to 
 her and hollow mockeries to him, became 
 so insistent that he yielded, and in the 
 smoking room at the dancing parties he be- 
 guiled the weary hours, until his wife, her 
 powers of endurance exhausted, was ready 
 to leave the scene of gayety. 
 
 She was in her youth. Twelve years her 
 senior, he found that she could not leap the 
 intervening time ; and had their tastes been 
 similar instead of diverse, he would have 
 found that the girl would naturally live out 
 her girlhood, be she wife or maiden. 
 
 At home his own genial hospitality was 
 turned into a travesty. The hearty wel- 
 come that had always been accorded to his 
 friends at his board and at his fireside, was 
 turned into scenes of display and frivolity. 
 
 Where he had formerly stood the genial 
 host, he now was his wife's husband, who 
 did the honors at frequent entertainments
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 219 
 
 to a flock of butterfly folk, who were invited 
 merely in acknowledgment of social indebt- 
 edness. 
 
 Ruth found her ideal happiness in this 
 life. She had no complaints to make. Even 
 their honeymoon had not brought to her 
 the startling disappointment that had over- 
 whelmed her husband. She had not ex- 
 pected the same style of a moon. It was 
 unreasonable to expect an ordinary honey- 
 moon to be 
 
 "All poetic, romantic and tender; 
 Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump, 
 And investing a common post or a pump, 
 A currant-bush or a gooseberry clump, 
 With a halo of dreamlike splendor." 
 
 She had deemed a practical honeymoon 
 that would shed a ray not too oppressive 
 in its sentiment, far preferable. 
 
 To reign supreme in one devoted heart 
 soon grew monotonous, and she was glad 
 when the bridal days were past, and she es- 
 caped from the too devoted attentions of a 
 loving bridegroom.
 
 220 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 He was certainly ideal in his treatment of 
 her. She had her plans all arranged for a 
 campaign on the money question, should 
 her husband prove to have as disagreeable 
 notions about controlling expenses as did 
 Auntie May's. She was quite surprised on 
 their first return to have him tell her that 
 he would never have his wife take the atti- 
 tude of a suppliant toward him; that when 
 he had said, "With my worldly goods I thee 
 endow," he had not considered it a mere 
 form. His bank account was as free to her 
 as to himself. 
 
 So the matter of money was forever set- 
 tled between them. 
 
 It was an ideal condition, but, alas! a no- 
 ble ideal and a wife that is not noble will not 
 harmonize, and as her aspirations began to 
 enlarge, and her ambitions to lead in the 
 social life around her led her on to greater 
 expenses, he wondered how one woman 
 could dispose of so much money, and yet 
 show no results but the gratification of her 
 own vanity.
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 221 
 
 Very mildly he tried to give her some idea 
 of the condition of his finances, and hoped 
 that the knowledge of the family income 
 would guide her into reasonable expendi- 
 tures. After all his explanations she an- 
 swered : 
 
 "I never thought that you would be mi- 
 serly, but I suppose that all men are." 
 
 The old relation between fifty dollars and 
 the labor that represents it that she had 
 learned in the school room seemed to exist 
 no longer. The thought of value was hate- 
 ful to her, and she continued in her extrav- 
 agance until her husband was desperate in 
 the necessity of restraining her in her un- 
 reasonable expenditures. 
 
 The failure of the bank account did not 
 cause her the least concern, and in reply to 
 her husband's persistent appeals for less ex- 
 travagant expenses she coolly remarked 
 that the getting of money was not her part 
 of the affair; if it were she would see to it 
 that it was provided. 
 
 After a while there came a time when her
 
 222 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 pleasure-seeking was interrupted, when she 
 saw that her gay life must be forfeited, and 
 that more serious duties were soon to rest 
 upon her, that she made the recollection of 
 his bachelor days appear to her husband 
 like a paradise. 
 
 The vain, selfish woman became the com- 
 plaining, peevish woman, and the wail over 
 her misfortune was so constant that the sis- 
 ter Irene had ample opportunity to demon- 
 strate the point that she had made from the 
 beginning, that Ruth lacked good sense. 
 
 But Mr. Douglas could not admit, even 
 to his sister, that his wife had been a disap- 
 pointment. He was too loyal hearted. It 
 is a sign of the most hopeless condition of 
 conjugal happiness when a man admits to 
 another his wife's shortcomings. 
 
 "You must remember that Ruth has 
 never been well," he explained. 
 
 It was too true; neither morally nor phys- 
 ically had she known what sound health 
 meant, and he spoke truer than he knew. 
 
 Nature would have compelled a whole-
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 223 
 
 some woman to respond to the constant af- 
 fection that had surrounded Ruth through 
 the years of her married life, and would 
 have opened to her a wonderful new beauty 
 in the little life that was coming, compared 
 to which the sacrifice of her mere social 
 pleasures would have been nothing. 
 
 That this hope and sweetness failed to 
 come to Ruth in her new condition, made 
 her husband even more solicitous. He had 
 hoped that the new little life would open the 
 true womanly nature of his wife and give 
 that richness that so often comes with moth- 
 erhood. 
 
 It had been a long cherished wish to have 
 a little one in their home, and all the sym- 
 pathy and gentleness of which he was ca- 
 pable was poured out to his wife. But the 
 fuller the measure the more she demanded, 
 for she felt that she was being imposed upon 
 in the most unreasonable manner, and she 
 was exasperated that she was not able to 
 shift this new responsibility upon some one 
 else. It had rarely occurred to her in her
 
 224 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 life that she had been compelled to do dis- 
 agreeable things against her will. There 
 had been always some way provided for her 
 escape; some one else upon whom she 
 could unload her burden. It was galling to 
 her pride and her vanity that she was forced 
 to bear this one entirely alone, and she felt 
 nothing but bitterness toward the little life 
 that was the cause of her misfortune. 
 
 The little one seemed to have felt the 
 chill life that was awaiting it, for with one 
 faint cry it went back again into the vast and 
 mysterious eternity from whence it came. 
 
 The young mother had not vitality 
 enough to launch another life; yet while 
 she could not give the little one strength 
 enough for a start in life, certain it is she 
 gave it all that she had. The weeks were 
 prolonged into months before she sat again 
 at the fireside. 
 
 With kindest sympathy her husband tried 
 to encourage her, but she felt herself to have 
 been too much abused ever to regard him 
 again as anything but her persecutor. The
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 225 
 
 relations between the two, instead of grow- 
 ing closer, only widened. 
 
 As soon as sufficient strength returned, 
 she insisted upon going to Chicago, where 
 Mr. Nelson had moved his family the year 
 previous, to stay with Auntie May and be 
 under the care of a specialist. 
 
 And now a new regime began. It was 
 the reign of the Doctor. 
 
 She had hoped for a return of even her 
 former delicate health, when she should 
 come under his care; but she was doomed 
 to bitter disappointment, for only for short 
 periods did she ever know even the sem- 
 blance of health. Every interruption of 
 constant medical care would send her back 
 to her old condition of weakness. 
 
 It was unreasonable to expect the doc- 
 tors to rebuild her constitution and implant 
 in her frame the strength and elasticity that 
 should have been ingrown through years of 
 culture. 
 
 It was not easy to see just where she had 
 been benefited by the enforced attendance 
 
 15
 
 226 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 at school, high grade attendance rolls, close 
 confinement, constant mental drill, and high 
 nervous pressure. 
 
 The thrills of pride that her teacher had 
 enjoyed in the display of all this systematic 
 and punctilious work scarcely compensated 
 her for her shattered constitution. 
 
 Even the increase in the treasury of the 
 Epworth League, or the constant attend- 
 ance at all sorts of musical and social affairs 
 seemed matters of small importance now. 
 
 Womanhood, uniformly developed, must 
 be the aim of a girl's education. 
 
 Motherhood, strong and capable, must 
 be the focal point of her development. 
 
 Scorn to the scoffer who would degrade 
 it by ignoring its potency. 
 
 Ruth might have been everything of 
 which she was capable, if she had been ca- 
 pable of being a good mother. 
 
 She was in reality a sick woman; but 
 she was infinitely worse because it suited the 
 role she played. Unable to engage except 
 in a limited degree in her former festivities,
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 227 
 
 she assumed the part of invalid, and in- 
 creased her demands for consideration. 
 
 She was a martyr, and in compensation 
 the utmost that the household could do 
 seemed inconsiderable. She resented their 
 interest in anything outside of herself, and 
 would not condescend to consider the dis- 
 cussion even of her husband's most vital 
 business interests worthy of listening to, 
 and certainly not deserving of the lively at- 
 tention that his sister Irene gave them. 
 
 The short visits to the city were soon ex- 
 tended, until the time that Robert Douglas' 
 wife was in his home was much shorter than 
 the time that she spent away from it. 
 
 At last he was forced to the humiliating 
 acknowledgment that his wife was a failure. 
 Irene answered with emphasis: 
 
 "Well, I simply would not endure it." 
 
 "What would you do?" 
 
 "Well, I would do something." 
 
 "Pray, what would it be?" 
 
 "I would never have married her."
 
 228 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 "Very wise, no doubt; but, unfortunately, 
 a trifle too late." 
 
 "I certainly should not live with her." 
 
 "I don't very much." 
 
 "Well, she should not be my wife." 
 
 "Would you have me apply for a di- 
 vorce?" 
 
 "N-n-o-o, you couldn't. She comes home 
 too often for that; but her extravagance is 
 ruining you, and she cares nothing for you." 
 
 "I see nothing to do but simply to en- 
 dure it." 
 
 And he did endure it with dignity before 
 all the world, except that one sister. 
 
 Even Auntie May could not approve of 
 Ruth, although her home was always open 
 to her. 
 
 "A man has some rights, Ruth," she said. 
 
 "Well, I have not infringed on any of his 
 rights at all. He never knew me to ask him 
 a question, or criticise a thing that he ever 
 did; and that is more than Uncle Richard 
 can say of you." 
 
 "I rather think it is; but then I don't go
 
 DODD'S SISTER. 229 
 
 away and leave him alone by the month. 
 Your mother doesn't approve of your way 
 of living at all, Ruth." 
 
 "O, mama is so old-fashioned! She 
 would have me trailing around with a whole 
 household of babies if she had her way; but 
 I assure you she never will. Why, if I had 
 been tied at home with a baby last week I 
 could not have come in when I heard that 
 Irving and Terry were going to be here; 
 besides, you know, I have to keep near my 
 doctor." 
 
 Mr. Nelson came in in time to hear the 
 last of her remarks. 
 
 "The doctor! I get so infernally tired of 
 hearing about the doctor and sick women 
 that I wish the whole tribe would perish." 
 
 "That's rather strong, Richard, it ap- 
 pears to me. Which tribe do you refer to? 
 The women, or the doctors?" 
 
 "I meant the doctors. But I should say, 
 from all the complaining women I hear, 
 that they were in a fair way to perish if they 
 were just left alone."
 
 230 DODD'S SISTER. 
 
 "Well, Richard, we can't help being sick. 
 You don't suppose we are so just for the 
 pure pleasure that there is in it, do you?" 
 
 "Don't ask me for the reason. I give it 
 up." 
 
 Mrs. Nelson gave it up, too. Ruth never 
 made any effort to study into causes. She 
 knew that she was sick, and that was 
 enough. But that she was mentally and 
 morally, as well as physically diseased, no 
 one but the neglected husband at home 
 fully realized.
 
 ,.,
 
 A 000 041 004 3