BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 MABEL D. CARRY
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL
 
 BETTY MOORE'S 
 JOURNAL 
 
 MABEL D. CARRY 
 
 RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO MEW YORK LONDON 
 
 1912
 
 Copyright, 1912, 
 By RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY 
 
 Third Edition
 
 LONDON, April 2, 1905. 
 
 DORCAS has persuaded me to keep 
 a journal. She has tried all my 
 life to induce me to do so, and 
 now she insists. I am rather glad she does, 
 for everything I am doing is so delightful 
 I do not want it to fade into oblivion. 
 
 Last evening we went to see a thrilling 
 melodrama at Drury Lane Theatre. There 
 were a villain and villainess, a hero and a 
 lovely maiden, and it all ended beautifully. 
 On our homeward way, as our cab threaded 
 its way through the maze of vehicles that 
 crowded the Strand, I squeezed Dorcas' 
 hand in mine and said: "Sister dearest, I 
 feel as if something were going to happen, 
 something perfectly, wonderfully different 
 than ever happened before." 
 
 Dorcas has always listened to my fancies, 
 ever since our mother was taken from us 
 and she, poor dear, was left with the care 
 of troublesome little me. Now she smil- 
 ingly answered: "It is the romance of the
 
 2 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 play you have just left, girlie, filling your 
 mind with visions of the conquering hero 
 who will some day come and demand you 
 of me." 
 
 John and Dorcas have brought me up 
 to London for my first long visit to this 
 great city, for in the past, when they have 
 come here, I have been left behind at 
 Chislehurst with Jack and Molly. 
 
 For two glorious weeks Dorcas has 
 indulged me with a variety of entertain- 
 ment, and I have enjoyed everything 
 with the ardor of one who for the first 
 time realizes the bigness of life. I sleep 
 to dream of the wonders of the day spent 
 and pleasures passed and awake, my 
 nerves tingling with excitement, to meet 
 the new day, full of unlived experiences. 
 
 I think of the nineteen years of my life 
 as a tale that is told. My world will 
 never be the same, now that I have seen 
 the working, playing, suffering humanity 
 of London. I long to become a part of 
 its busy life to work, to play, to suffer, 
 too, if need be. I hunger to live, for it 
 fills my soul with amazement to think
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 3 
 
 how ignorant I am of the mysteries of life. 
 In that beautiful, peaceful dream of living, 
 in the quiet English village where I have 
 spent my life under Dorcas' kind guid- 
 ance, I realize now that I have waited with 
 impatience to hear, see, and feel the great 
 outside world. 
 
 We reached the Savoy entrance, where 
 we are living during our stay in London, 
 as a number of cabs drove up with pas- 
 sengers and baggage, evidently, from an 
 American liner, for we have learned to 
 know the characteristics of the incoming 
 travelers well enough to guess their ports. 
 John, who had been awaiting our coming 
 in the foyer, was greeting with a warm 
 welcome a tall, dark American, and was 
 so engrossed with the stranger that he did 
 not see us enter. 
 
 Dorcas summoned a page to tell John 
 of our arrival, and we took the lift to our 
 rooms. 
 
 I moved as one in a dream I have 
 seen the Stranger and heard his voice for 
 about five minutes, yet I know that my 
 hero has come into my life; but I do not
 
 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 want to acknowledge anything so startling 
 and terrifying to myself. 
 
 My heart beat wildly, and I wonder 
 Dorcas did not notice my excitement as 
 we chatted in my room of the day's pleas- 
 ures. She attributed my emotion to the 
 play, and left me with an admonition to 
 hurry to my rest. 
 
 Our rooms overlook the river, and not 
 being able to sleep I curled up on the win- 
 dow seat to look into the night. The 
 Thames, with its innumerable barges, flowed 
 to the sea, and I, Betty Moore, sat and 
 watched, feeling what a tiny little I, I was. 
 
 I thought of the women who had sailed 
 down the river to the White Tower that 
 gleamed in the distance, many never to 
 return to life and love. They had been 
 flesh and blood like me, and maybe had 
 sat as I, watching the flowing river, ques- 
 tioning the future with trembling hearts.
 
 II 
 
 LONDON, April 13, 1905. 
 
 THE Stranger has ceased to be the 
 Stranger, for he and John were at 
 Oxford together. He is in London 
 on business. He came very unexpectedly, 
 and must return to America in June. 
 Dorcas says that only the very young 
 and the very old live in the present; that 
 it is an indication of departing youth to 
 cease looking toward the future. I must 
 have aged rapidly the past month, for I 
 won't and can't think beyond June. 
 
 Dorcas and I spend many hours at the 
 galleries and museum. Sometimes Mr. 
 Bennett accompanies us and sometimes 
 John and he are both able to be with us 
 the entire day. Billy, as John and Dorcas 
 call Mr. Bennett, enjoys everything as 
 much as I do. 
 
 Dorcas sent us to the Tower unchaperoned 
 to-day, while she rested in her room. We 
 wandered through its galleries and finally, 
 very tired, sat down in the armor room.
 
 6 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 Mr. Bennett was immensely interested in 
 the coats of mail and cruel swords, and 
 while I rested he studied them in detail. 
 I thought what a noble knight he would 
 have made, so big and lithe; his quick 
 brain and alert body would have carried 
 his lady's colors to victory. I allowed 
 myself for the moment to imagine I was 
 the lady watching in the stalls, thrilling 
 with love and pride at his salute. He 
 turned quickly he does everything quickly 
 and must have seen something of my 
 dream in my face. I jumped into the 
 present with regret. 
 
 "Come here, please, Betty." (Dorcas 
 told him to use my Christian name, ex- 
 plaining to him I really am not a woman 
 yet. Dear, deluded sister, she cannot see 
 I have left childhood ages behind me!) 
 
 "Betty," he said, "if you were a knight 
 entering the lists, would you prefer this 
 breastplate or that?" pointing to two 
 different kinds. 
 
 "If I were the knight's lady," I replied, 
 " I should prefer he wore this one," choosing 
 the one that seemed more protective.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 7 
 
 "If you were his lady," he said, smiling 
 with amusement (why, oh, why, will they 
 persist in treating me as a child?), "you 
 might not want him to return." He con- 
 tinued: "He might be a cruel knight who 
 shut you up in his castle while he amused 
 himself going to the wars." 
 
 "Still," I persisted, "if he were my 
 knight I should want him to return, just 
 the same." 
 
 "I believe you would, you loyal child," 
 he answered gravely. 
 
 "Mr. William Bennett," I burst out 
 angrily, "I must inform you that you are 
 laboring under a delusion. I am not a 
 child, but a woman. I am nineteen years 
 of age." 
 
 "Miss Moore," he spoke seriously 
 "I apologize. You seem almost a little 
 girl to me, probably because John has 
 always spoken of you as 'Little Betty' ; but 
 no one knows as well as one's self how old 
 one is; and from henceforth I am going to 
 consider you, as you say you are, 'a woman.' 
 If you will call me Billy I shall know you 
 have forgiven me."
 
 8 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 I am sure he doesn't really think me a 
 woman; but it is a consolation to have 
 told him my age, and it is a happiness to be 
 able to call him "Billy." 
 
 We went back to the bench where we 
 had been sitting, and soon a little family 
 came and sat beside us. They were simple 
 country folk, but they were happy with 
 each other. The mother took the baby 
 from her husband, and it nestled itself 
 into her arms with a little coo of content. 
 The boy; about five years old, asked his 
 father all kinds of questions, and the 
 father very patiently answered them. The 
 mother's eyes were full of proud happiness 
 as she looked from one to the other. She 
 glanced from time to time toward the display 
 of armor, but it was just a fleeting look of 
 uncomprehending interest. She looked at 
 the things they had come to London to 
 see, because they had come, but they stirred 
 no romantic fancies in her breast. Her 
 own living present was what mattered to 
 her the husband who was taking a holi- 
 day, the boy who was like his father, and 
 the cooing baby in her arms. She was a
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 9 
 
 slip of a girl only a few years older than I, 
 but she had really lived. Her face was 
 worn, and already there were lines around 
 her eyes and mouth. Her hair was pretty 
 and her teeth were still good, but her poor 
 thin arms and flat chest showed through 
 the cheap lawn dress she wore. 
 
 I wonder why it isn't possible for me to 
 do without an expensive gown or two, to 
 give women like her a few more beefsteaks. 
 I have talked with Dorcas about it, but it 
 seems as difficult to divide my excess of 
 luxury with them as for the biblical camel 
 to pass through the eye of the needle. 
 Dorcas says, "It can't be done that way." 
 There must be some way to do it. 
 
 Billy I am going to write it and say it, 
 and say it to myself, until I can call him 
 by his name without feeling as if I were 
 declaring my love each time Billy said, 
 "A penny for your thoughts, Betty," as I 
 sat in a brown study, watching the baby 
 look into its mother's eyes. 
 
 "I can't tell you," I said shortly, for my 
 uncontrollable fancy was imagining what 
 unspeakable happiness to hold in your
 
 io BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 arms the child of the man you loved. 
 
 "I am- sorry, for you looked as if they 
 were pleasant thoughts," replied Billy. 
 
 Yes, they are painfully pleasant thoughts. 
 I would gladly change places with the 
 little, hard-working, emaciated mother, 
 whose husband looked at her with such 
 proud masculine ownership. She may be 
 a physical wreck from overwork and care, 
 while I am still young and have my over- 
 fullness of plenty, but I fear the man I love 
 will never think of me as anything but a 
 little girl, never need me, never ask me to 
 be his wife.
 
 Ill 
 
 LONDON, April 16, 1905. 
 
 WHAT is my fate to be? I asked 
 Dorcas to-day if she believed in 
 Fate. I asked her if she thought 
 my life and hers are ordained to be lived 
 in a prescribed manner. Did she think 
 that Fate has our beginning, our being, 
 and our end irrevocably written in her 
 books? That although some of us seem 
 to guide our destiny, in reality all of us 
 are helpless in the hands of Fate? I am 
 going to write down her reply where I may 
 refer to it. 
 
 "My dear, you should ask a theologian 
 or a philosopher such questions," she 
 said. "I can only answer you personally 
 and vaguely. I do not think that Fate 
 has already denned the future of your life 
 and mine. I choose to believe that our 
 future awaits fulfillment, and may be 
 influenced for good or evil by a power 
 within ourselves, given us by the divine 
 Creator of all things. The happenings of
 
 12 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 life are often beyond our control, and we 
 feel our helplessness to change what seems 
 to be the working out of foreordained 
 wants, but I believe we can influence what 
 we call our destiny, that 'we can be what 
 we will.' " 
 
 Here I interrupted impatiently: "You 
 surely don't mean to tell me that all I 
 have to do to become a great artist or 
 philosopher, or anything I choose to be, 
 is to just will to be it?" 
 
 "No, Betty, I do not mean the 'to be' 
 as you express it; although I think the 
 power of which I speak could effect more 
 than we realize toward the accomplishment 
 of such desires. I mean that we .have the 
 power to control the ego within us and 
 force it to do our bidding. We have this 
 power, but often neglect to use it, and the 
 ego soon becomes unmanageable. The 
 more ungovernable the ego and the more 
 difficult to control, so much more power 
 and courage do we gain, succeeding, to 
 meet the intricacies and the tragedies of 
 hfe that are far beyond our understanding. 
 
 " I presume you can recollect the day you
 
 13 
 
 were first conscious of your own existence. 
 I remember very vividly the hour I saw 
 myself for the first time. I must have been 
 little more than three years of age at the 
 time. Through the mist of years between 
 the then and the now I see the incident as 
 occurring in the life of some other person, 
 but I know it was I. 
 
 "It was a soft, sweet day in early June, 
 when a wee maiden pushing her doll baby 
 in a tiny perambulator wended her way 
 under the blossoming cherry trees. She 
 looked toward the window, where mother 
 sat, to wave a last good-by before starting 
 on that long walk around the yard with 
 dolly. Which way to go, by the well or 
 to the stable to look at old Billy? She 
 decided to go to the well, there to gaze 
 in awe into its deep, dark water. As she 
 peered into its depths a little voice within 
 her said: 'Be careful, Dorcas.' Who was 
 Dorcas? Why, of all beautiful things, 
 it was herself, and more beautiful still, 
 she could make Dorcas look into the well 
 as long as she pleased. She could send 
 her back to the sunshine and flowers. To
 
 i4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 exercise her newly found power she told 
 Dorcas to look up at the cherry trees. 
 The little girl looked up through the 
 fragrant blossoms. There was a robin 
 examining the tree carefully, to see how 
 soon he might enjoy the fruit that would 
 follow those beautiful but useless blossoms. 
 Dorcas wondered if he knew he was Robin. 
 As she gazed upwards she saw patches of 
 blue sky and floating, fleecy clouds. She 
 would tell the Father in heaven how 
 thankful she was that He had sent her 
 to this beautiful world. 
 
 "From the sitting-room window mother 
 called. She must go in and leave this 
 lovely outside world. Old Tom sat purring 
 in the door. She must whisper to him 
 before she went. He might not know that 
 he was Tom. Tom seemed not to under- 
 stand, and mother called again." 
 
 "Dorcas," I said, "there never was a 
 sister in the world like you. I don't remem- 
 ber when I first recognized my own trouble- 
 some me, and as long as I have you to 
 control it, I shall not bother about the 
 tiresome thing. I am relieved that you
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 15 
 
 think Fate hasn't settled the remainder 
 of my life for me. It gives me the shivers 
 to think that out there in the future there 
 might be a lot of difficulties, all planned, 
 waiting for me to live them. It's much 
 pleasanter to believe I might by some 
 unexpected act of my own surprise her 
 into changing her original ideas about me. " 
 
 May 20, 1905. 
 
 We drove through the White Chapel 
 district to-day. Dorcas did not approve 
 of our going, but I insisted. I wonder 
 where all the "thinks" in my head are 
 coming from to-night. As I gazed from 
 our comfortable electric brougham carry- 
 ing us smoothly through those streets of 
 misery my face grew crimson with shame, 
 shame to think I can be so comfortable 
 and happy, and all this misery in the world. 
 I blushed for my clothes, for my gold bag 
 at my wrist, for my clean, well-fed body. 
 After we had gone a short distance I begged 
 John to return. I was too ashamed to 
 ride thus in my luxurious conveyance and 
 see toothless, filthy old women stumbling
 
 16 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 along the streets. I can never forget as 
 I go to my clean bed and rise to refresh 
 myself with dainty food and soft raiment 
 I shall think they are suffering in filth. 
 Oh, the pity of it! 
 
 May 25, 1905. 
 
 To-night I sat by my window and 
 watched the river. I sent out a prayer of 
 apology to those who, watching its waters, 
 suffer, for I cannot now suffer with them. 
 
 Billy has asked me to be his wife, and 
 there is no room in my heart for anything 
 but selfish joy. 
 
 May 27, 1905. 
 
 Dorcas has consented, against her desires, 
 to our marriage next month. Dearest of 
 women! While I cannot think yet of 
 what it will be to leave the dear ones here 
 in England, I know it will be easier than 
 to let Billy sail away to that unknown 
 America and leave me behind. Billy must 
 go, so I must go with him. 
 
 Dorcas has sent for Molly and Jack, 
 and we are all going to live here until
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 17 
 
 after the wedding. Dorcas wants me to 
 be married at St. Margaret's, as she was, 
 and I am glad she does. 
 
 I am too happy to write in this journal. 
 All I have to say is I am going to marry 
 Billy and Billy is going to marry me. 
 
 June 15, 1905. 
 
 The glorious sun shone through the 
 stained-glass windows of St. Margaret's 
 to-day, on me, Betty Moore, who joyfully 
 promised William to be his wedded wife 
 "to have and to hold from this day for- 
 ward, for better for worse, for richer for 
 poorer, in sickness and in health, to love 
 and to cherish, till death us do part." 
 
 I know no fear of the future, for I have 
 lived in the sunshine of perfect wedded 
 love and the glory of wifehood, and mother- 
 hood like a vision beautiful shines before me.
 
 IV 
 
 NEW YoRk, July 5, 
 
 WHAT is to become of me with 
 out Dorcas' daily presence? ! 
 imagined that when I marriec 
 and put the ocean between Dorcas anc 
 myself I would become a self-reliant, inde 
 pendent woman, but I am just the sam< 
 dependent Betty. 
 
 I am a little sorry for me, but I am mor< 
 sorry for her, because it seems that whei 
 separation comes it is always harder fo: 
 the one who gives all than for the 6n< 
 who takes all. 
 
 That's the queer thing about this funn} 
 old world. It shouldn't be so, but it is 
 While I feel as if myself and L had beer 
 torn violently asunder, I am so bus} 
 telling myself what to do that I can't tx 
 as lonely as she, who has suddenly lost th( 
 care of the same troublesome me. 
 
 The past weeks are like a dream, a happ} 
 one, where things happened so fast I haven'1 
 had time to think. I find myself living ir 
 
 18
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 19 
 
 a strange land, the wife of a man I did not 
 know a few months ago. I prick myself 
 and say: "You are Mrs. William Ben- 
 nett," and it does sound odd. 
 
 If it were not for those watery miles 
 between Chislehurst and New York my 
 happiness would be perfect. Now that 
 I am separated from Dorcas I realize that 
 the voice of the spirit within, which daily 
 bids me seek the truth and beauty of 
 life, is of her creation. She would say 
 that it is my conscience, given me by the 
 divine Father of all. Perhaps it is, but 
 it was such a tiny little voice that without 
 her tender fostering it would long ago 
 have lost the power of speech, and I am 
 conscious that I shall need to listen to its 
 directing in this new world.
 
 V 
 
 NEW YORK, December 17, 1905. 
 
 I HAVE not written in my journal 
 because I have been absorbed in liv- 
 ing. I have tried two or three times, 
 but my pen wouldn't say anything. 
 
 This city seems very wonderful to me 
 in its youth and strenuousness. There is 
 something in its atmosphere that gets into 
 my veins like wine, stimulating me to 
 restless energy. 
 
 I arise in the morning resolved to spend 
 a quiet day at home, writing letters and 
 sewing. I go out to market, and when the 
 fresh breeze blows in my face I become 
 intoxicated with a desire for doing. 
 
 On my way to market I pass several 
 tenement houses. The children of these 
 tenements, dirty and anaemic, play un- 
 watched in the dangerous gutter and street. 
 Near by are lovely homes with yards, 
 where healthy, well-nourished children 
 frolic in safety, watched by careful attend- 
 ants. Why, oh, why! Those poor little
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 21 
 
 scraps of humanity in the gutter can't 
 help being born there, and surely the 
 wholesome, clean youngsters are where 
 they are through no merit of their own. 
 I suppose this problem is as old as the world, 
 but it is new to me. There is always some 
 ignorant young person coming along and 
 asking to be told why things are as they are. 
 I don't know as the why makes much 
 difference either the important thing is 
 to find out how to help the children in the 
 gutter. I want to do something for them, 
 but they are so many and they need so 
 much. I talked to Billy about it, and he 
 said there are all kinds of charitable societies 
 and settlements relieving suffering, and 
 trained paid workers going into the homes 
 of the poor, helping them in many ways. 
 It is a relief to think things are being done, 
 but the multitudes still suffer, while we go 
 on living our perfectly comfortable lives. 
 
 Oh, dear, if Dorcas were near, with her 
 comforting presence! My heart aches so 
 easily these days. Is it because of the 
 precious new life just beginning to throb 
 within me?
 
 22 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 I have often wished I were a man, because 
 men's lives are bigger and broader, but 
 now I give thanks I am a woman. To 
 think of missing the joy of carrying within 
 the temple of our body a child never to 
 feel the blessedness of nurturing with one's 
 own being the little unborn babe. 
 
 The glorious sunshine pours itself through 
 my window and bathes me in its warmth. 
 
 Life is unspeakably beautiful.
 
 VI 
 
 NEW YORK, January 16, 1906. 
 
 SUCH a snowstorm! I determined 
 to finish a little gown to-day, so I 
 could have the fun of sewing on the 
 darling rosettes Billy brought me last night, 
 but I have to keep looking out of the win- 
 dow at the beautiful white world without. 
 
 Billy is just beginning to realize the 
 wonderful thing that is happening, to us. 
 When I showed him the first tiny garment 
 I had made for the little stranger who is 
 coming in May he looked at it with the 
 queerest expression in his eyes, and then 
 I knew it was not real to him the way it is 
 to me. 'Tis harder for the man to grasp 
 the joy of it all; he is glad I am happy, 
 but he doesn't understand. 
 
 Oh, this lovely, lovely world! 
 
 The pure white snowflakes come softly 
 down. They make me think of the souls 
 of little babies. 
 
 I wonder what our baby will be like. 
 Will he look up into my face with Billy's 
 
 33
 
 24 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 eyes? Oh, I hope so! I want him to be a 
 little Billy. 
 
 Some days I am terrified at the thought 
 of my coming responsibility. To have a 
 human soul given into my keeping! But 
 I can't be frightened long because I am so 
 happy. 
 
 I wonder how Dorcas bore it when she 
 was left with helpless, motherless me but 
 Dorcas was Dorcas, and I know she held 
 the tears back from her dear eyes so the 
 baby's skies might be bright. 
 
 All the ugly housetops are hidden under 
 the soft covering of snow. 
 
 Billy's Aunt Sarah is visiting us. She 
 has been a mother to Billy. It's strange 
 to think we neither one of us have known 
 a very own mother. Billy must have been 
 a wonderful child. Aunt Sarah enter- 
 tains me with recitals of his precociousness. 
 She lives in a tiny little town where she 
 has spent her life. She never married, but 
 used the best years of youth mothering 
 three orphan children, Billy and his brother 
 and sister. 
 
 I can't understand how Billy can be
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 25 
 
 impatient with her. Of course I know she 
 tries him. She doesn't see things as we do, 
 and insists on talking to him when he 
 doesn't want to be talked to. He says 
 he loves her devotedly, but best when she 
 is in Ohio. He is very generous with her 
 financially, but he wants her to live where 
 she does; he isn't willing to share his home 
 with her. I feel it is almost -our duty to 
 ask her to live with us. Indeed, when I 
 think of what she has done for Billy I feel an 
 ungrateful wretch for letting her live alone, 
 but Billy says I have more heart than 
 head; that we would all be miserable. 
 
 From where I sit I can see Aunt Sarah. 
 She doesn't realize I can, and she is look- 
 ing out at the snowfall too. Her face is 
 sad, and beautiful in its dignity, as she 
 gazes into the storm. Poor dear, how 
 different her future looks from mine. I 
 wonder if she is wishing she had not left 
 youth behind, or if she is thankful her real 
 work is over and she may spend her remain- 
 ing years in the peaceful quiet of Canton, 
 watching us younger ones fighting our 
 battles.
 
 26 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 January 30, 1906. 
 
 The days slip by. They are all very 
 much alike. Aunt Sarah and I shop a 
 little, walk a little, sew a little, and talk 
 a great deal. I have to ask her all sorts 
 of puzzling questions. At least they are 
 puzzling to me. Perhaps I haven't lived 
 long enough to be intelligent, but the 
 world to-day seems to me to be one big 
 interrogation point.
 
 VII 
 
 MEREDITH, N. Y., June 16, 1906. 
 
 A YEAR ago to-day I said good-by to 
 England and Dorcas. 
 
 I am sitting by the side of the 
 wonderful creature I call "my son." His 
 little black head (I am so glad he isn't a 
 fluffy blond like me) is a tiny reproduc- 
 tion of Billy's. As he nestles in his 
 basinette the fragrance of his warm, damp 
 little body makes it almost impossible for 
 me to resist snatching him to me. 
 
 He gurgled in his sleep, and I had to 
 kiss his krinkled, velvety cheek. 
 
 He has been in the world only six short 
 weeks, and I care so much for his precious 
 little being that I ask myself, "If this care 
 increases at the same rate, what propor- 
 tions will it assume in the years to come?" 
 
 Billy decided quite suddenly to buy a 
 home in the suburbs, and was fortunate 
 in securing a very charming house in this 
 pretty town, where many of his friends have 
 come to live. 
 
 27
 
 28 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 Meredith is thirty miles from New York. 
 It is a very charming village. Ravines like 
 little valleys cut up the town, forming 
 delightfully secluded sites for homes. I 
 joy in walking through its winding streets, 
 coming unexpectedly to the entrance of 
 some lovely home hidden from the passer-by 
 by thick shrubs and dense underbrush. 
 For in some places it is so wild I indulge 
 my fancy by pretending I may see a red 
 face peeping from behind some old tree. 
 Our savage brothers seem very near when 
 we look at the bent trees marking their 
 old trails. There is one in our yard, and 
 oftentimes I sit by it and think of the 
 lives that have been passed here before us. 
 
 My heart is filled with pity for the poor 
 creatures who were at war with us and with 
 themselves. Did some timid Indian mother 
 perhaps creep through these woods with 
 her babe at her breast, fearing for its 
 precious little life? Men are strong and 
 lose fear, if they know it, by fighting, but 
 we poor things must wait and suffer. Those 
 mothers must have been of braver stuff 
 than I. I find myself terrified if baby's
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 29 
 
 temperature rises a degree. As I con- 
 template the life of a mother of red men 
 and mine, my respect increases for her. 
 She was compelled to make her home 
 in a wilderness; in contrast to her I am 
 given a palace in a garden of Eden. She 
 had to be wife, mother, and slave; while 
 I am as an empress, compared to her 
 position toward her world. Her and her 
 children's safety depended on her skill, 
 patience, and courage; while I, whether I 
 be skillful, patient, or brave, am protected 
 with scientific precaution from every physi- 
 cal danger. She had for her spiritual 
 inspiration belief in gods who knew no 
 mercy, while I may pray to the merciful 
 Father in heaven, knowing that He in 
 His loving kindness will hear me. 
 
 I would have made a poor Indian mother 
 indeed, and I am filled with humbleness 
 when I think how easy is my lot compared 
 to hers. 
 
 I wonder if we women are such poor weak 
 creatures as some men in every age have 
 deemed us; that "on account of the weak- 
 nesses of our sex and unsteadiness of
 
 30 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 character" we should not have things made 
 too easy for us. Do we fulfill better our 
 womanhood in suffering and repression 
 than in comfort and liberty? Does the 
 softness of civilization, our excess of free- 
 dom from effort, make us content to 
 confine our efforts to the enjoyments of 
 living? Is it because our American hus- 
 bands of the twentieth century demand 
 so little from us physically, mentally, and 
 morally, that we are forgetting how to 
 fulfill the vocation of wife and mother? 
 Will this indulgent husband, observing 
 our retrogression, curtail our liberties and 
 thrust us back into subjection? Are we 
 not wise enough to appreciate our privi- 
 leges and strong enough to fulfill the 
 duties of our sex in spite of the distractions 
 of our lives? 
 
 I am counting the days until the time 
 arrives for Dorcas to be with us. The 
 thought of her coming is like the anticipa- 
 tion of the Christmas Eve of childhood.- 
 
 Baby is awake.
 
 VIII 
 MEREDITH, April 16, 1907. 
 
 DORCAS did not come to America. 
 She never saw my baby. A week 
 before she was to have sailed she 
 was stricken with a fatal illness and died 
 within a few hours. 
 
 I wonder now how I can write calmly of this 
 awful tragedy in my life. It is impossible 
 for me to express the anguish her going 
 from this world caused me. For a year I 
 have done as others who suffer such losses. 
 I have lived and moved in my allotted 
 space, putting each day behind me as a 
 task I must perform. I groped blindly in 
 the dark, praying for light, and at last the 
 pain lessened and again I can feel, as when 
 she lived, the assurance of her love and 
 help come to me from out the eternal. 
 I cannot remember how I have lived the 
 past year. I have tried not to darken our 
 home with the shadow of my grief. I sent 
 Billy among his friends to seek amusement. 
 Billy's older brother, Fred, who has
 
 32 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 lived in New York longer than Billy and 
 has many friends there, has been thoughtful 
 of us. He has seemed to understand 
 Billy's need of entertainment and my need 
 of being alone. He has done many things 
 to relieve the sad hours for me and the 
 tiresomely stupid ones for Billy by insist- 
 ing on Billy's spending the evenings in 
 New York with him and his friends. I 
 am beginning to understand that Billy's 
 nature craves the constant exhilaration of 
 social as well as business activity. 
 
 I had expected suburban life in America 
 to be like the quiet country life we led 
 at Chislehurst, but it is vastly different. 
 There is such a hurrying all the time, and 
 I try to do enough to keep three women 
 busy. I play golf three and four times a 
 week, sometimes more, in my efforts to 
 acquire a good enough game to play in four- 
 somes with Billy; play bridge three or 
 four afternoons a week, attend morning 
 reading classes and afternoon teas. We 
 dine with friends or have friends dine 
 with us nearly every night in the week. 
 We go to dinner dances and motor, motor
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 33 
 
 everywhere. There seems to be "no time" 
 for the women. The men have their 
 business, and anything outside of that is 
 recreation; but our recreation becomes a 
 business, and our real duties disagreeable 
 somethings for which there seems to be 
 no time or inclination to discharge. 
 
 Our social circle grows larger each year; 
 continually acquaintances ripen into friend- 
 ship. Being so much together, women 
 within an incredibly short time become 
 most intimate friends, calling each other 
 and each other's husbands by their Christian 
 names, and discussing freely their most 
 private affairs. The women are sweetly 
 cordial to me, and I appreciate their accept- 
 ance of me, a stranger, as one of themselves. 
 I have grown up with few but earnest 
 friendships in my life, and it is difficult 
 for me to accept intimacies easily. 
 
 Nelle and Charles Patterson are our most 
 intimate friends. He is a grave, fine man of 
 forty, who wooed and won Nelle, a southern 
 belle, a few months before our marriage. 
 
 Our life is a continual dissatisfaction to me. 
 We are surely losing the best in life, for of
 
 34 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 what value is mere amusement, a continual 
 whirl of good times, if I must give over my 
 baby to the care of a trained person because 
 I have no time to be with him? Billy and 
 I have no chance to be with each other 
 or to take part in the more serious things 
 of life. Our Sundays are spent in motor- 
 ing or at the golf club, and our summer's 
 absence from church service seems to es- 
 tablish the habit of staying away during 
 the remainder of the year. 
 
 A majestic oak stands in the center of 
 our lawn and many times I look at it, 
 tall and mighty against the sky. I have 
 a pagan reverence for its dignity, and I 
 cannot help contrasting its life with mine. 
 Feeling the failure of my frivolous existence, 
 I look with envy at the oak, fulfilling its 
 destiny in calm upgrowing. 
 
 MEREDITH, May 6, 1907. 
 
 Yesterday was Sonny's birthday and 
 was one of the days that come in life as 
 perfect as living may be, the remembrance 
 of which I wish to lock in my heart as a 
 precious memory.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 35 
 
 The sun came up as it did a year ago, 
 when I watched it rise, knowing that the 
 hour of my bodily anguish was upon me. 
 Then, as I stood by the window watching 
 the passing of the night and the beginning 
 of the day that was to be different from all 
 other days for me, the glory of the flaming 
 ball of fire in the east dispelling the misty 
 clouds which floated between us gave 
 me courage to meet the coming hours. 
 That sunrise was beautifully full of promise 
 that nothing but good could happen on 
 such a day. Through the mist of suffering 
 I could hope that when the same sun sank 
 in the west my child would live. That 
 sunrise has been a part of my consciousness 
 ever since the hour my baby breathed. 
 With the sound of his birth scream bringing 
 supremest joy to me in my agony I could 
 feel through the 'birth of the day God's 
 promise of eternal light. 
 
 Yesterday Billy awoke to see me sitting 
 by the window, and guessing my thanks- 
 giving, as I watched the light in the east, 
 he came and knelt beside me. 
 
 "Betty, little girl," he said, "just a year
 
 36 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 ago to-day our Sonny's coming made me 
 the proudest man in the world. " 
 
 "Yes, dear," I answered. 
 
 He held my hand and told me how he 
 loved the boy, and called me "sweet little 
 mother." Oh, the preciousness of that 
 hour! The nurse brought the little fellow, 
 warm and sweet from his bed, to us, and 
 Billy cuddled him in his arms as if the 
 babe's exquisite preciousness were beyond 
 expression in words. 
 
 I can always have that sweet memory 
 to look back upon. 
 
 June 17, IQO'/. 
 
 Sonny took his first steps alone to-day. 
 When he with outstretched arms came 
 with tottering steps toward me my heart 
 felt as if it would burst with pride and 
 
 joy- 
 it is one of those days when your being 
 sings a triumphal march of living. I feel 
 within me the realness and joyousness 
 of immortality. All the petty, miserable 
 things fade before the sunshine and warmth 
 of pulsating, vigorous living.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 37 
 
 To-day I feel my life means something 
 I am not born in vain. I am wife, mother, 
 friend, and the possibility of helping, of 
 lessening the world's pain, seems real.
 
 IX 
 
 MEREDITH, June 20, 1907. 
 
 NELLE PATTERSON and I are much 
 together. She is a charming girl, 
 but more of a man's than a woman's 
 woman. She seems always to make friends 
 easily with men, while women are apt to 
 hold a little aloof from her. She is apt to 
 be overbearing because since her marriage 
 she has become imbued with her husband's 
 idea of herself that she is without fault, 
 her judgment so perfect that her decision 
 should be accepted in all things as final. 
 If Charles would not surround her with 
 this atmosphere of false valuation she would 
 soon realize that she is as the rest of us. 
 She is not of the temperament that can rise 
 above such adulation. A woman with a 
 bigger heart and soul would recognize the 
 dangers of his idolatrous love and, striving 
 to reach his idealization of her, would 
 appreciate her own shortcomings in failing. 
 Nelle asked me to dine with her last 
 night, as Charles and Billy were golfing at 
 38
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 39 
 
 a distant club and would not reach home 
 until late. I would have much preferred 
 a quiet hour straightening the confusion 
 on my desk, and I smiled as I acquiesced 
 to her demands over the telephone. I am 
 becoming so accustomed to the idea that 
 Nelle's wishes should always be considered 
 before others' that I almost believe it 
 myself. 
 
 After dinner we went up to Nelle's room 
 to look at new gowns. I was again im- 
 pressed with its luxuriousness. It might 
 be the sleeping chamber of a princess, so 
 costly is it in all its appointments. The 
 entire home is pleasing in its perfectness, 
 but Nelle's room more than satisfies the 
 desire for comfort and beauty. It almost 
 oppresses one with the sense of its extrav- 
 agance in luxury. If it were mine I should 
 continually be asking myself if I were 
 worth, keeping for my own personal 
 enjoyment, so great a share of this world's 
 goods. 
 
 Ever since my two months' stay in 
 London, in spite of my happiness at that 
 time, I carry with me the consciousness of
 
 40 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 the others, those who dwell in cpntinual 
 daily physical want. It may be poor 
 reasoning, a "woman's way," but I am 
 happier to allow myself only what seems 
 necessary to one's kind. In the great 
 problem of waste in the universe I realize 
 my economy of luxury is but the tiniest 
 atom, but it is necessary to my peace of 
 mind. The multitude of suffering human- 
 ity may not be helped, but a few of the 
 vast throng may experience less discom- 
 fort, and my sense of proportion is not so 
 outraged. 
 
 It is poor consolation for me to try to 
 delude myself with the theory that is 
 offered by some of my women friends, 
 namely, that in spending freely I am 
 benefiting mankind. The things for which 
 we women pay extravagant prices rarely 
 attain that end. The larger percentage 
 of our money goes to increase the income 
 of those who have, the well-fed, well- 
 clothed merchant, the well-to-do owners 
 of office buildings, overpaid and incompe- 
 tent household servants. I think it would 
 be interesting but disquieting to trace as
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 41 
 
 far as possible the history of a month's 
 expenditures. If we could be sure that 
 the underfed, underclothed seamstress and 
 the anaemic clerk were receiving a fair pro- 
 portion of our money we could with easier 
 conscience enjoy our extravagant gowns and 
 the personal luxuries of womankind. 
 
 As I watched Nelle carelessly throw the 
 lovely gowns across a chair I smiled to 
 think how unconscious she was of any such 
 tiresome conjectures. 
 
 She was alluring in the daintiest of dinner 
 gowns, and the spacious room, its ivory 
 tinted walls melting into softness under 
 the glow of rose furnishings, seemed but a 
 fit environment for so charming a creature. 
 A lamp on the center table shed its rosy 
 gleam over her snowy bed, with its exquisite 
 hand-embroidered covers. Her filmy night- 
 robe and pink satin slippers awaited the 
 wearer, who always disregarded the fra- 
 gility of her clothes and would indifferently 
 drop beautiful gowns on the floor, to be 
 cared for by a maid who shared the house- 
 hold idea of its mistress' perfection. 
 
 I noticed the open box of cigarettes on
 
 42 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 her bedside table. "Nelle," I expostu- 
 lated, "I believe you are smoking too much 
 these days." 
 
 "Betty," she replied petulantly, "I sup- 
 pose you would deny me that harmless 
 amusement, if you had your way. I have 
 to have them. Think of the cares I have, 
 this great house and all its troublesome 
 servants, and my nerves a wreck. I 
 don't see how you manage with the 
 baby, too. How do you ever get any 
 rest? You are beginning to show the wear 
 and tear. You had better do the way I 
 do, and rest in the morning. One never 
 gets a chance later in the day. No one 
 is allowed to come near my room in the 
 morning until I ring my bell. Just because 
 the men have to get up is no ( reason we 
 should. My nerves are too bad I can't 
 sleep until midnight." 
 
 I hesitatingly suggested that the cigar- 
 ettes might have something to do with the 
 condition of her nerves. This angered 
 her, and she replied impatiently: "Just 
 because you don't enjoy smoking, you 
 have an idea it injures those who do. I
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 43 
 
 should think you were accustomed enough 
 to seeing women smoke in England not 
 to be forever scolding if we follow your 
 example." 
 
 I wonder why it is that Americans adopt 
 the evils of the social life of foreigners so 
 much more readily than any commendable 
 practice the same foreigners may have. 
 The feeling exists here that it is beneath 
 the dignity of an independent American 
 citizen to attempt to better his social habits 
 'by seeking the desirable in foreign customs, 
 and for some incomprehensible reason the 
 American feels he should be excused from 
 criticism for the vulgar and undesirable 
 habits he may acquire imitating the same 
 foreigners. 
 
 I reached home before Billy and awaited 
 his coming on the porch. 
 
 How strange he should forget my birth- 
 day! Sometimes the thought darkens my 
 happiness that Billy does not care as I do. 
 Was I so blinded with my love that I never 
 questioned if it were the same with him? 
 We lead a feverish, restless life. He does 
 not seem to wish any quiet evenings at
 
 44 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 home. Going out, we are always apart, 
 he with some other man's wife and I with 
 another woman's husband. 
 
 He came home in fine spirits and apolo- 
 gized for neglecting me on my birthday. 
 He was tender and loving, and all the little 
 black demons spread their inky wings and 
 flew away.
 
 X 
 
 MEREDITH, June 26, 1907. 
 
 IT is impossible to keep count of the 
 days they are so busy. I can't tell 
 how I have spent them. They are a 
 jumble in my mind motoring, golfing, 
 visiting, telephoning, with a little home 
 management and child superintending 
 mixed in. 
 
 I am going to try to write in this journal 
 regularly there must be a good reason 
 for doing anything Dorcas asked me to do. 
 
 Sonny is blooming in the pure air and 
 happy as the day is long. I don't spend 
 much time worrying about his upbringing. 
 I am too busy. 
 
 We mothers talk over our problems and 
 give each other advice, but we aren't home 
 long enough to apply it. I can't remember 
 the days' happenings well enough to 
 attempt going back any farther than 
 yesterday. 
 
 Yesterday I played with Charles in a 
 mixed foursome against Billy and Nelle. 
 
 45
 
 46 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 
 We always play that way our games 
 
 seem to balance better. I do enjoy golfing, 
 but I wish some time I might play with 
 Billy. 
 
 Married life isn't like what I had dreamed 
 back there in that quiet English village 
 I should have been a blacksmith's wife, I 
 am so happy with my own, and I imagine 
 if my good man had been wielding the 
 heavy hammer the long day through he 
 would have been content to sit by his 
 fireside, his sonny on his knee, smoking 
 his pipe, while I might sit opposite him 
 and listen to him recount the village gossip. 
 
 I know I am foolish I ought to enjoy 
 doing as other women of my class do, and 
 I mean to make myself. 
 
 If we followed our own inclinations we 
 would become dull folks indeed, I suppose. 
 
 We came in from the links as the great 
 red sun was setting, the sky over our heads 
 aflame with its reflected light. I called 
 to Billy to look at its beauty, but he was 
 busy tying Nelle's shoe and gave the 
 glowing west an unseeing glance. I felt 
 cold and depressed as we came up to the
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 47 
 
 club, and Billy ordered a cocktail for me 
 commanding me to drink it. 
 
 I was amused, thinking how different he 
 is from the husband of ancient Rome who 
 would solemnly kiss his wife, and if he 
 detected liquor on her breath probably 
 beat her. Yet we think the standard of 
 woman's morals vastly higher than in those 
 early days. I suppose the moral degrada- 
 tion of the beating more than offsets the 
 harmful privilege of drinking stimulants. 
 I wonder if Billy really thought I needed 
 the liquor or whether he felt embarrassed 
 as a host to let Nelle drink alone. 
 
 I can't help but wish Nelle were different 
 in some ways, or perhaps I might wish I 
 were more like her, for Billy seems to 
 enjoy her ways more than mine. I am 
 mortified to find that I try to think and see 
 things as she does, in a foolish attempt 
 to please Billy. 
 
 July 27, 1907. 
 
 Jean Lamson gave a baby party yesterday 
 
 for little Georgiana, who was three years old. 
 
 Sonny behaved like an angel. There
 
 48 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 were thirty little ones as guests aad thirty 
 proud mothers and nearly as many nurses 
 watching the tiny tots. I left Fanny at 
 home because she is so fussy about William. 
 Jean had a professional entertainer up from 
 New York. We all sat on the lawn, and 
 the ones who were old enough watched 
 him entertain us. Then they played games, 
 and while Sonny chewed my watch chain 
 I enjoyed watching the bobbing bows of 
 dainty little maidens tripping over the 
 grass after balls and flying things. Nelle 
 came and sat beside me. She looked bored. 
 I said I hoped some day Sonny would have 
 a little sister like Georgiana, something I 
 could tie bows on. Nelle looked at me 
 with surprised disgust and said: 
 
 "I don't understand your infatuation for 
 children, Betty. They are cunning when 
 they are dressed and at a party, but they 
 are so tiresome in everyday life." 
 
 "Nelle, dear, your own wouldn't be," I 
 suggested. 
 
 "Don't talk to me of my own," she 
 answered angrily. "I hear enough from 
 Charles on that subject. I thought when
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 49 
 
 I married Charles he would be satisfied with 
 me. He wanted me badly enough. " 
 
 Even as Nelle gave utterance to her 
 angry thoughts she was beautiful to look 
 upon. I wonder how I can love her and 
 enjoy her beauty as I do, for her ideas 
 of life hurt me. 
 
 "Nelle, Nelle, don't talk so," I expos- 
 tulated. 
 
 "Why not, I would like to know?" she 
 retorted. "You are too proper, Betty. 
 I suppose I shock you because I call a 
 spade a spade, but you can just listen to 
 me. You are one of the women a person 
 can talk to and know you will keep your 
 mouth shut." 
 
 I do wish Nelle would not express herself 
 like a rough boy. 
 
 "Why didn't my mother tell me what 
 would be expected of me when I married? 
 Why don't women rebel? Answer me!" 
 
 "Nelle, I can't answer you," I said de- 
 spairingly. "You won't listen to my ideas." 
 
 "Well, you can tell me what they are. 
 I don't have to adopt them." 
 
 "No, there is no likelihood, Nelle, that
 
 50 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 you will," I said. "I believe that all earthly 
 achievement, riches, or power dwindle into 
 nothingness in comparison with the privilege 
 of parenthood. Men and women attempt 
 to convince themselves that it is a common- 
 place act to create and reproduce them- 
 selves, but the truth is that it always has 
 been, is, and always will be, the most 
 wonderful expression of human life. Really, 
 it is a responsibility we should consider 
 very precious, the office of wife with all its 
 possibilities. Your mother did not say 
 the things you think she should have said 
 because she couldn't. You would not 
 have understood them, and besides, the 
 woman of the past generation accepted 
 more readily the obligations of wifehood 
 and motherhood." 
 
 Baby William had gone contentedly to 
 sleep, soothed by our voices, and just then 
 Katherine Price came up and spoke to us. 
 She is just eighteen, and lovely in her 
 beautiful girlhood. After kissing Sonny's 
 dimpled hand, which lay limp as he slept, 
 like a crumpled rose leaf, Katherine passed 
 on, to play with the children.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 51 
 
 "Now look at her!" burst out Nelle. 
 "Young, and a beauty, with men at her 
 feet, she might marry a man like Howard 
 Bancroft. He has the financial where- 
 withal and is the kind who would give her 
 a good time. Instead, she chooses to marry 
 Jack Elliott, poor as a church mouse, who 
 will expect her to rear a family and vege- 
 tate." 
 
 "Oh, Nelle," I exclaimed, "you are 
 wrong, wrong; you don't understand." 
 
 "No, I don't," she retorted. "You are 
 one of those weak women who believe in 
 the old order of things, that a woman 
 should be subject to her husband and be 
 fruitful and multiply. Not for me!" 
 
 With that she left me, and I cuddled my 
 precious boy in my arms, worshiping every 
 atom in his tender, helpless body.
 
 XI 
 
 August i, 
 
 BLESSED is the day that brings one a 
 new ideal, a definite idea to make 
 a part of one's consciousness. 
 
 I met Elizabeth Bainbridge at a lecture 
 this afternoon and walked home with her. 
 
 We spoke of the contrasts of different 
 women's lives. It stands out vividly here 
 in a village like this, some of us living in 
 the luxury of the twentieth century, well 
 to do, others striving to hide their needs 
 from their pampered sisters. 
 
 "Elizabeth," I said, "can a woman 
 retain character and keep her soul from 
 dwindling while living in the ease and 
 luxury that many of us do?" 
 
 "My dear little woman," she smiled 
 back at me, "what an embarrassing ques- 
 tion to ask me. Perhaps you do not know 
 that I have experienced the meaning of 
 luxury I had never known anything of 
 the other side of living until ten years ago. 
 I have therefore lived in close contact 
 
 S3
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 53 
 
 with the women who enjoy both and those 
 who enjoy neither. Yes, my dear, I think 
 it is possible, but not easy, for the woman 
 who lives with every physical want gratified 
 hi this extravagant age, to keep her soul 
 healthy." 
 
 "How, Elizabeth? How?" I begged. 
 
 "It is a problem each woman must 
 solve for herself," she replied. "There are 
 few women, even among a class of over- 
 cared-for and overindulged, who cannot 
 find responsibilities and beautiful possi- 
 bilities, in discharging which they may 
 exercise a soul becoming feeble for lack of 
 exercise." 
 
 "That is lovely," I laughed. "Mine 
 is positively anaemic at the present time. 
 The body, like a Frankenstein, towers over 
 it, and it, in its puniness, shrinks daily." 
 
 "The woman who seeks to escape the 
 slavery of present-day civilization," she 
 continued, "must think back to her girl- 
 hood ideals and endeavor to live them. 
 She must give as much time to the spiritual 
 and mental as to the physical part of life. 
 Just because she has every means of
 
 54 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 physical enjoyment at her disposal she 
 need not spend all of her time indulging 
 herself. If such a woman will practice 
 the old-fashioned virtues of home making 
 and child rearing she will find therein an 
 escape from the feverish living of the 
 American woman of the present-day well- 
 to-do class. I think, generalizing, that the 
 women of the very wealthy class are better 
 home makers than the women who have 
 enough of this world's goods but desire 
 more. They are the ones who should 
 awaken, to their responsibilities and hasten 
 to change their way of living." 
 
 "Yes, yes; I agree with you. I am one 
 of them. Really, I don't know how. If 
 I were my cook I could concentrate my 
 energies on being a good cook; if I were 
 my chauffeur's wife I could fulfill my 
 destiny washing, cooking, sewing; but I 
 am neither. I am the wife of an American 
 gentleman who gives me the liberty of 
 making or of unmaking my own life and 
 his." 
 
 " I believe, " she said in a thoughtful tone, 
 "that it is the middle class in this young,
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 55 
 
 vigorous country who will do more toward 
 bettering the inequality of man than has 
 been done before. Just think of the possi- 
 bilities of us mothers! If women would 
 only remember that they are the soul of 
 civilization. 
 
 "Never before in the history of the world 
 have so many women held so much power 
 in their hands. No, I don't mean the fran- 
 chise, although thus far I can see only 
 good results from the privilege; I mean 
 the liberty given wives by the present- 
 day American husband. Sometimes it is 
 careless indifference to responsibilities as 
 fathers, but more often it is loving confi- 
 dence in the judgment of the woman he 
 has chosen to rule the home. If these 
 mothers would bear children and rear 
 them with the thought that it isn't what 
 they get from the world but what they give 
 to it, the history of the next century of 
 the world's civilization would be changed. 
 
 "How little the fragrant, charming 
 woman playing bridge and munching choc- 
 olates, while her little son or daughter 
 rides in a motor or walks with its nurse,
 
 56 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 how little she thinks that her every act is 
 reaching into the ages ahead of her, and 
 perhaps deciding a critical, ethical, or 
 moral result, after she has vanished, leaving 
 no trace of having lived. The mothers 
 of the poor and of the uneducated are 
 influencing the lives of millions of coming 
 citizens; the mothers of our class are 
 bearing few children and neglecting their 
 opportunities of rearing those few to be- 
 come world powers for good." 
 
 "Oh, Elizabeth, do you think we neglect 
 our children? I imagined they were too 
 carefully protected. " 
 
 "So they are, physically, my dear," she 
 returned. "They are shut off from phys- 
 ical experiences under the care of maids 
 who dare not allow them the risk of ful- 
 filling their natural desires in play. If 
 you have ever listened to the conversation 
 of the average nursemaid and child as they 
 sit in the yards or park, your instinct will 
 tell you how dissatisfying to the little one 
 must be its limited world. It's not the 
 nursemaid who is to blame; it is you 
 mothers. You can't expect her, with her
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 57 
 
 limitation, to feed that young soul and 
 mind. If the little one were left to itself 
 it would travel into the wonderful dream- 
 land of childhood, but just as it is about 
 to make a beautiful discovery well-meaning 
 Hannah steps in with: 'Now, John dear, 
 you mustn't do that what would mother 
 say!' These first few precious years you 
 mothers have your possibilities and you 
 are not there. You must forgive me if I 
 speak too earnestly, but I have lived longer 
 than you sweet young mothers, and I know 
 the day will come when you will realize 
 what you have missed doing. Don't be 
 satisfied with only the material welfare 
 of your child; pour your soul into him, 
 and that will keep your own healthy." 
 
 "What can the women do who haven't 
 children?" I asked. 
 
 "I think," she replied, "the want keeps 
 them from becoming the complacent, self- 
 satisfied, material women of whom we are 
 speaking. If it doesn't, and one is a shallow, 
 selfish woman, she becomes a soul developer 
 for a tired husband, and at least serves 
 some purpose toward the good, while the
 
 58 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 women I mean are nothing. They bear 
 one or two children and are satisfied they 
 have done all that is expected of them. 
 Their husbands should be content with 
 the privilege of supporting them in their 
 busy do-nothing existence." 
 
 "I see another difficulty," I suggested. 
 "How can such women as you describe 
 be the mothers you would have them?" 
 
 "In many ways," she replied. "If such 
 a woman awakes to the fact she can soon 
 rouse her spirit to action. There is her 
 church awaiting her interest and help; 
 there are her civic responsibilities; there 
 are the lives of others less fortunate than 
 herself coming in contact with her life; 
 there are always the poor. At present, 
 the pleasantnesses of life absorb nine tenths 
 of her time, and the earnestnesses of living 
 must be squeezed into the remaining one 
 tenth. I need not prescribe the many 
 outlets for her newly awakened sense of 
 responsibility. As soon as this woman 
 wishes to do her work, and turns deter- 
 minedly to fulfill her duty, she will find 
 the 'how.' "
 
 XII 
 
 September 16, 1907. 
 
 FEELING depressed and discouraged 
 this morning, I decided to ask 
 Elizabeth to give me an hour of 
 her cheering companionship. I asked her 
 by telephone what hour I might come 
 to see her, and her cheery voice came back : 
 "Any hour, my dear, if you don't mind 
 sitting in the kitchen." 
 
 I found her busy baking bread and cake, 
 her eyes full of sparkling animation. 
 Beside her on the kitchen table was an open 
 volume by John Stuart Mill on the sub- 
 jection of women. 
 
 "My dear Betty, what's wrong with the 
 world?" she questioned, after she had put 
 me in a low rocker by the south window, 
 where flowers bloomed and a canary sang 
 happily. 
 
 "Women," I replied. 
 
 She laughed her sweet, cheery laugh as 
 she poured her cake mixture into the tin. 
 
 "Do you think my husband will tire
 
 60 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 of me as I grow old? I hear all the time 
 from other women the necessity of keeping 
 my husband enamored with my physical 
 attractions. Do you think the sex element 
 is so overproportioned that it overbalances 
 everything else in the relation of men and 
 women to each other?" 
 
 I watched her face as she put her cake 
 carefully in the oven. One is always dis- 
 covering new beauties in her noble counte- 
 nance. You need never fear to see even 
 a fleeting expression of anything unlovely. 
 If imperfect thoughts attempt to find a 
 resting place within her mind the fineness 
 and purity of her nature overcome their 
 harmful mission and they effect no expres- 
 sion through her. 
 
 She did not answer me immediately, 
 but continued her homely duties in her 
 direct, capable way, and as I waited for 
 her to speak the sunshine, the bird's sweet 
 song, her confident, cheerful self, created 
 an atmosphere of positive hopefulness. 
 As one comes in chilled from the outer 
 world to sit before the comforting heat and 
 brightness of an open fire, so was I grateful
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 61 
 
 to bask in the sunshine of her presence. 
 I began to feel the possibility of overcoming 
 the imperfectness of my existence. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "marriages that 
 are based on love should be spiritual. In 
 them the element of sex is necessary, but 
 from this element the consciousness of 
 sex may vanish. You are young now, in 
 the fullness of life and love. You are 
 living in an age when the materialness of 
 civilization accentuates everything per- 
 taining to the flesh. You have only to 
 look at one day's living to realize how 
 little spirituality there is in our lives. The 
 hours are spent in eating, sleeping, dressing, 
 and recreation. The sex attraction, old 
 as the hills, thrives in the atmosphere of 
 present-day civilization. Man, who is in 
 all ages a more physical being than woman, 
 very naturally as the women of his genera- 
 tion become more materialistic forgets the 
 spiritual part of her being and looks for a 
 corresponding animalism in her. 
 
 "We glory in the advancement of our 
 age, and yet I think we women have 
 been sliding down the scale the past two
 
 62 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 centuries. We need as a sex to work for the 
 restoring of old-time standards. We need 
 to wake to the realization of the duty 
 of child bearing and of simple living. 
 Every woman, no matter how limited 
 her sphere, has spiritual possibilities 
 toward the world. If her lot is to walk 
 unknown, the look in her eyes, her bear- 
 ing, her apparel, may be an influence for 
 good or bad. As mothers of men her 
 opportunity is increased a hundredfold. 
 Women as a sex are not as loyal to each 
 other as men. If enough women cared 
 sufficiently for the glory of their sex, and 
 would make sacrifices for its uplifting, 
 this world would be a much better world." 
 
 "Elizabeth," I said, "if I try to do the 
 things you say women should do, will my 
 husband's love continue for me through 
 the years? May I cease worrying about 
 losing my physical attraction for him?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear Betty, I think you may, " 
 she replied. "There are few men with 
 cultivated faculties who will not love you 
 lastingly for beauties of character and of 
 soul. Create for yourself the highest ideal
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 63 
 
 of womanhood you can imagine, and strive 
 continually to live that ideal. There must 
 be among our fine American gentlemen 
 many disappointed husbands, men who 
 learned the worth of womanhood from a 
 noble mother and who are unfortunate 
 enough to have for a mate a helpless, 
 selfish woman. Such wives need only try 
 to fulfill their husbands' idealization of 
 them. 
 
 "But, Elizabeth," I interposed, "are 
 there not many men who are too ignoble 
 to appreciate a wife's moral and spiritual 
 strivings toward perfection, who are better 
 pleased to have her a good-looking animal?" 
 
 "Perhaps, Betty," she admitted. "How- 
 ever, a wise and good woman may 
 be the means of awaking such a man's 
 better self. I fear it is an almost impos- 
 sible task for a woman to make over a 
 man's soul after marriage. A wife with 
 a brutish husband is a poor helpless crea- 
 ture, and if she has strength to hold her 
 belief in goodness and purity, although shut 
 off from the joy of them in her own life, 
 she is surely one of God's elect."
 
 64 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 I am indeed thankful for this woman's 
 friendship. 
 
 September 17, 1907. 
 
 We dined with George and Jean Lamson 
 last night. 
 
 During dinner I asked Charles if he 
 thought we women were too extravagant. 
 Charles, the adoring husband, never criti- 
 cizes anything feminine, but it was the 
 beginning of a lively discussion. 
 
 "Robert says," Helen Gregory inter- 
 rupted, "that women of our set all spend 
 more than we should." 
 
 "He's right," agreed George Lamsou. 
 "I am busted the first of every month when 
 Jean's bills come in." 
 
 "I should think you would be ashamed of 
 yourselves," Nelle broke in angrily. "I 
 would like to know what you mean by 
 'Jean's bills ' ! It's probably the butcher, 
 the baker, and the candlestick maker. 
 We can't help it if prices are higher than 
 a cat's back, can we?" 
 
 "No, Nelle," Robert answered, "but 
 you can learn the value of money. Helen
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 65 
 
 is trying to, but it isn't in her line. She 
 is a fine little spender, however." 
 
 "Golly, " said George, "you have got 
 courage to talk up like that. " 
 
 "That's enough for you, George," said 
 Jean, with a look that quieted any further 
 remark her husband might have thought 
 of making. 
 
 "I've noticed if there is any economizing 
 to be done it's the woman who is expected 
 to do it. I worry over my bills and hand 
 them to George feeling like a criminal, 
 and then I happen to see some of his club 
 bills! The baby will grow, and George 
 likes me to be as well dressed as other 
 women. Isn't that so, George?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so, " assented George. 
 
 "I'll tell you what is the matter, boys." 
 We all laughed, for Fred Perry is a bachelor. 
 
 "Well, but I am serious," he persisted. 
 "It's all wrong to make a woman feel 
 dependent. If I were a woman I would 
 poison a man who treated me as something 
 to be supported. When you marry a 
 girl you make her your partner, and half 
 of everything is hers. It's no favor for
 
 66 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 you to support her. Her economic value 
 in the home is worth half the income you 
 may be able to earn. When I think of 
 my existence and see the way you fellows 
 live I am inclined to change the statement 
 and say your wives ought to have all the 
 income and give you an allowance." 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Fred," George blus- 
 tered, "we have a hard enough time now 
 without you giving these girls any new 
 ideas of their importance." 
 
 "You wait," continued Fred, "until 
 1 show you how to treat a wife. I think 
 the women have a darned hard time. If 
 I were a woman I wouldn't marry the best 
 man on earth. The woman takes you 'for 
 better for worse,' and it's usually 'worse' 
 for her." 
 
 "Think what a husband for some 
 woman!" sighed Jean. "Fred, why in the 
 name of goodness didn't you make yourself 
 known before we girls tied ourselves to 
 these unappreciative men?" 
 
 "I should like to have an opportunity 
 to make a statement," interrupted Robert, 
 in his coldly pleasant voice.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 67 
 
 "Go ahead, Rob," said George; "speak 
 up for us." 
 
 "It is this," said Robert. "Fred is 
 from twenty-five to fifty years behind 
 schedule in his wife valuation. Wives used 
 to be worth in economic value to the home 
 a great deal more than they are at the 
 present day. What do the women you 
 know give to their homes and their world 
 of real value ? I am not speaking of excep- 
 tions or of the very rich or very poor, but 
 of the women you know. Generally speak- 
 ing, the servants run the house. If there 
 is a child or two, expert nurses are paid 
 to care for it or them. The wife and 
 mother has all she can do to buy her 
 clothes, shop, entertain and be entertained 
 with luncheons and teas, play golf and 
 bridge, answer telephone calls, and ride 
 miles in expensive automobiles on seem- 
 ingly important errands. At the end of 
 the day, instead of having added to the 
 home her share of labor, whether physical 
 or ornamental, she would, if she were to 
 compute her hours' activities in dollars 
 and cents, be shocked to find herself an
 
 68 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 expensive luxury to her husband. I don't 
 think the woman is altogether to blame for 
 this condition. I am not so much criti- 
 cizing her as making a statement of fact. 
 She used to spend more time in her home 
 with her children and less time and money 
 upon herself than now." 
 
 "Robert," exclaimed Jean, "how can 
 you say such outrageous things?" 
 
 "They are not outrageous, girls, they 
 are simply facts," smilingly replied Robert, 
 for he loves to provoke a discussion, and 
 often overtalks himself with that end in 
 view. 
 
 "Jean," questioned Robert, "did you 
 ever stop to figure just how much money 
 you carry around on your person every 
 day?" 
 
 "About twenty -five cents," laughed 
 Jean, "and once in a while a ten-dollar 
 bill." 
 
 "I don't mean that," Robert replied in 
 his superior way. "I mean when you go 
 out arrayed in your usual attire, do you 
 ever think of the total cost of gowns, 
 hat, lingerie, and trinkets? Do you ever
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 69 
 
 compute what percentage of your husband's 
 income is required for your personal needs? " 
 
 "Great heavens, no, Robert! What a 
 cold-blooded way of putting it," said 
 Jean, with disgust. 
 
 "That's it; if we men try to induce you 
 women to use business methods in your 
 domestic affairs you call us cold-blooded," 
 argued Robert. "To speak frankly, the 
 wives and daughters of the American 
 business man of to-day spend too much 
 money on their persons. They are very 
 nice to look at, but of what economic 
 value are they to their husbands and 
 fathers? My grandmother and yours gave 
 something to the world. You women 
 would call them frumps, and say their 
 outlook was narrow. What will your 
 grandchildren say of you?" 
 
 I wonder if there is more truth than we 
 are willing to admit in Robert's criticism 
 of our extravagance?
 
 XIII 
 
 September 30, ipo/. 
 
 THERE was a Mothers Meeting at 
 school to-day. There are a number 
 of mothers who confer with the 
 teachers to discuss ways and means of 
 helping the children. 
 
 The town is divided by the Alder, a 
 tiny river, into what is spoken of as the 
 East and West Side. There is, however, 
 more than a geographical difference between 
 the two, a difference more impossible to 
 bridge or tunnel than the most difficult 
 condition of nature the difference of class. 
 I am just beginning to recognize what an 
 important thing it is here in America. 
 At home dividing lines are distinct and of 
 long standing. Here it is different. There 
 little attempt is made to bridge the differ- 
 ence or break down the ethical barriers. 
 Here there is a constant effort to ignore 
 the difference and destroy the obstructing 
 something that does exist, notwithstanding 
 our desire to deny it. I love this vigorous, 
 70
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 71 
 
 warm-hearted country and its people, and 
 rejoice that I am one of them. 
 
 A Mrs. Cartwright called me up on the 
 telephone and asked me to become a member 
 of the Mothers and Teachers Association, 
 and to attend the meeting with her to-day. 
 She is the wife of the village barber. I 
 called for her in my automobile and she 
 seemed pleased, but I felt uncomfortable. 
 I tried to be at my ease and talk naturally, 
 but didn't succeed very well. My constraint 
 affected her, and we were both glad when 
 we reached the school. 
 
 There was a good-sized gathering, about 
 one hundred from the West Side and ten 
 from the East. I saw Jean Lamson, 
 perfectly at her ease, talking vivaciously 
 to four West Siders, who were frankly 
 enjoying her, her charm, her clothes, her 
 general something that made the difference 
 between her and them. If the difference 
 was observed by Jean she gave no 
 evidence of it. She went to the heart of 
 things. She ignored the immaterial ap- 
 purtenance. She might not have to cook 
 her meals and wash her children's clothes.
 
 .72 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 in fact, could not do so if she wished, 
 unless she displeased her husband and 
 failed in being what he desired. She 
 might ride in an expensive motor while 
 they walked on tired feet to the meeting, 
 but she was able, in spite of her handicap, 
 the seemingly unjust favoritism of Fate, to 
 get near them. She made them feel that 
 she was honored with their acquaintance, 
 that they could do more for her than she 
 for them. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Stock," she was saying to 
 the wife of the blacksmith, "I have been 
 counting the hours until this afternoon, to 
 have your advice about George, Jr. Is it 
 right for me to allow him to trade marbles 
 with the other boys? You know " she 
 explained to the woman standing next to 
 her "it's such a satisfaction and privi- 
 lege for a mother with little tikes to have 
 the advice of a woman who has successfully 
 raised four boys." 
 
 Mrs. Stock glowed with pride. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Lamson! My boys are good 
 boys, to be sure." 
 
 "Yes, indeed they are, Mrs. Stock,"
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 73 
 
 continued Jean cordially. "I would be 
 thankful to have mine turn out as well." 
 
 The meeting was called to order, and we 
 listened to the teachers for a few minutes. 
 Then several of the mothers told experi- 
 ences. They were nearly all West Side 
 mothers. We East Side mothers don't 
 have many experiences that are worth 
 telling, partly because we are with our 
 children so little, partly because our children 
 live in an artificial world, while the children 
 of the West Side begin early to solve life's 
 problems. Of course I don't think the 
 conditions of the West Siders are ideal, 
 nor the ones I would choose for my children 
 had I the choosing, but I believe they are 
 better than the East. The majority of 
 these children, compared with the majority 
 of ours, will give more to the world in 
 proportion to what they received than ours. 
 
 I spoke to Jean of Mrs. Bainbridge, 
 and she said, "Yes, I know; she is an 
 exception." 
 
 Why need she be? She is a normal 
 woman, not more intelligent than many 
 of us East Side mothers. Her children
 
 74 JBETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 bear testimony to the close companionship 
 of an intelligent woman. The mistake we 
 make, I am sure, is that we give our children 
 over to the charge and companionship 
 of inferior intelligence. We cannot afford 
 to employ a woman comparable to our- 
 selves. We will not assume the confining 
 position, so we compromise by hiring a 
 less intelligent person, promising ourselves 
 that we will supervise our child's daily 
 life. 
 
 Alas, the temptation is too strong for 
 us pleasure-loving mothers to fulfill our 
 self-impQsed conditions. We are detained 
 by a bridge game later than we expected; 
 the maid spends the twilight hour of story- 
 telling with our children. We spend a 
 Sunday motoring, and the day is the same 
 as any other day for the little ones. The 
 child grows older, and we have become 
 accustomed to the idea of the nurse filling 
 the gaps. We forget that we are relegating 
 this tender soul and the developing mind 
 to the constant contact of an inferior 
 intelligence. 
 
 I was foolish enough to give utterance
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 75 
 
 to these sentiments in a reading class of 
 the East Side mothers. 
 
 Grace Dewar flared out: "I think you 
 are wrong, Betty; my Hannah is a most 
 intelligent girl, and I consider her a fitting 
 companion for Henry. She understands 
 his moods better than I do." 
 
 It is funny how personal women are. 
 I tried to explain that I was generalizing. 
 Probably Hannah is a superior person. 
 
 "It is strange," I said, "that we women 
 are willing to ignore class distinction in 
 the most important thing in the world to 
 us. We assign to , a girl, probably one 
 unfamiliar with the mother's ideals of 
 life, the most precious privilege of directing 
 the budding mentality of our children." 
 
 "What are you trying to say, Betty?" 
 asked Grace sarcastically. 
 
 "I am trying to say," I replied, "that 
 unless we provide a person as intelligent 
 as ourselves with whom our children are 
 to pass the greater part of their early 
 years, we should spend more time with the 
 little ones. We should not allow frivolous 
 pleasures to consume those precious hours."
 
 76 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Oh, heavens, Betty; it is impossible," 
 said Lillian Faber. "For my part, I think 
 American youngsters have a good time. 
 Look at the poor foreign children they 
 are left entirely to governesses and nurses, 
 and it's all about the same in the long 
 run, and my children have their entire 
 freedom. The older ones look after them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Girls," I said desperately, "please 
 don't think I am criticizing you, but I 
 must say something that's in my mind and 
 heart. I think it is also a mistake for 
 children to be left entirely to themselves. 
 Freedom is a wonderfully beautiful and 
 dangerous thing, and the mistake the 
 American mothers make when they do 
 not retain a person to be with the older 
 children is this: Usually their children 
 have been left entirely in the care of a 
 nursemaid. The nursemaid has done the 
 best she could, if she happened to have 
 been reared wisely herself; otherwise she 
 has made manifold mistakes. She prob- 
 ably has taken good physical care of the 
 child. The mental and moral has been
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 77 
 
 left for the mother, and she has had 'no 
 time.' 
 
 "At an early age the children are given 
 their freedom, without the foundation of 
 character that should have begun in the 
 irursery. The mother has not had time, the 
 nursemaid has not had the knowledge, to 
 create for the childish mind the ideals that 
 should exist before the little adventurers 
 are given the freedom of their lives. 
 
 "Now the foreign mother, in correspond- 
 ing circumstances to ours, either gives more 
 of herself to her children or provides per- 
 sons of higher intelligence than we do to be 
 with them in her place. There is also an 
 important difference to be considered in 
 regard to the nursemaids. In the old 
 world there is an established order of 
 things domestic. Here there exists a chaotic 
 condition. There the maid, although pos- 
 sibly more ignorant than the nursemaid we 
 might employ, is familiar with the mother's 
 ideas and ideals; her mother probably 
 cared for her mistress or her master in her 
 or his childhood; she has been equipped, 
 in a way, for her position; she does not
 
 78 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 aspire to be a 'lady,' but is content to 
 confine her ambitions to being a good 
 nursemaid. Here the position is filled by 
 a maid who has come to this country with 
 the idea of 'bettering' herself. Very often 
 she is affected by the restless atmosphere 
 of the household. She is easily dissatisfied, 
 and takes on 'nerves' like her mistress." 
 
 "Betty, you talk as if we were to blame 
 for everything," complained Grace. 
 
 "No, no, Grace," I expostulated; "I 
 am only stating things as they look to 
 me. We are not to blame for 'everything.' 
 We can't help the existing order of things 
 as we find them, but when we recognize 
 conditions in our sphere of mistress and 
 mother that need bettering, we are to 
 blame if we do not take time attempting 
 to improve them."
 
 XIV 
 
 October 14, 1907. 
 
 SUCH a day! Its warmth is like the 
 return of spring, a spring whose 
 radiant youth has grown beautifully 
 wise with the passing summer, giving 
 us more confidence in her promises. She 
 returns for a brief instant to remind us of 
 the coming of another spring and the 
 happiness of future perfectness. 
 
 The beautiful sunshine of nature fails 
 to light the gloom of my soul. 
 
 I long for the cold bleakness of November, 
 for I must acknowledge the fact of Billy's 
 increasing infatuation for another woman. 
 
 I have ceased to ask why he cares for 
 her, why I have failed to keep for myself 
 the most precious thing in life to me, why 
 Charles does not see our danger and come 
 to the rescue. 
 
 Last night Nelle, Charles, and the Ram- 
 seys dined with us. During the evening 
 Nelle proposed a run to Eagle's Rest. 
 Charles stepped into the den back of the
 
 8o BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 living room to order his car. I excused 
 myself at the same time, going to the but- 
 ler's pantry to give an order to the maids. 
 From there I ran hurriedly up the back stairs 
 to peep at Sonny and find a warm wrap. 
 
 Five minutes later I started down the 
 front stairway, taking each step carefully 
 in the dark, as the light had not been 
 turned on in the lower hall. Some one 
 had started the victrola, and it was pouring 
 out a chorus of light opera. Nelle hurried 
 out from the living room and began pulling 
 apart the wraps that had been thrown on 
 the hall seat. Billy followed to help her 
 and to turn on the light. The electric-light 
 bulb had burned out the night before, and 
 the maid had forgotten to renew it. When 
 Billy pushed the button the bulb refused 
 to give light. 
 
 "Never mind," said Nelle, "I can see 
 well enough; don't bother." 
 
 The moon's rays lighted the hall suf- 
 ficiently to make everything distinctly 
 visible. Billy found Nelle's wrap and 
 helped her slip it on. The fastening of 
 Nelle's coat caught in her hair. It is the
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 81 
 
 kind of hair that tempts one to smooth 
 its gleaming waywardness. It all happened 
 in a minute. As Billy's fingers fumbled 
 with the refractory button entangled in 
 Nelle's tresses, her nearness must have 
 tempted him beyond his control. The 
 released wrap slipped to the floor and he 
 held her to him with defiant, almost angry 
 vehemence. 
 
 I turned back and hurried up the stair- 
 case, praying the Chocolate Soldier in 
 the victrola to persist in telling his lady 
 his love until I could make my escape 
 and the two below cover their confusion. 
 
 The ride through the calm, white night 
 helped to quiet my quivering soul. 
 
 When Billy and I closed the door of 
 our home upon the others I could hide my 
 misery from his eyes. At the top of the 
 staircase I turned to go down the hall to 
 Sonny's room, to look a last good night at 
 the darling in his crib. As I turned, Billy 
 whispered in that hoarse stage whisper we 
 always use when Sonny is asleep: "Betty, 
 give the kiddie a kiss for me." 
 
 If it had not been for that whispered
 
 82 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 message with its tender intimacy I might 
 have had the courage to demand an apology 
 from Billy and refuse to have my wifehood 
 held so cheaply. 
 
 I came back to our room, to find Billy 
 waiting to unfasten my gown and to hear 
 how the boy slept. 
 
 "Was he lying on his tummy? Was he 
 sucking his thumb?" 
 
 Yes, I am a weak woman, clinging to 
 the preciousness of my wedded love, trying 
 to hold that which is slipping from me. 
 I put from me as if it had not been the 
 remembrance of the embrace of the other. 
 My husband is mine, and I will fight for 
 him and for myself until the strength of my 
 love shall win against that which is not love. 
 
 December 19, 1907. 
 
 Billy telephoned me last night at five- 
 thirty that he could not get home until 
 late, and that Fred was on the five-thirty 
 train coming out. 
 
 I thought Fred showed a momentary 
 anxiety when I told him of Billy's being 
 obliged to stay in New York.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 83 
 
 "How is Billy doing these days?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "There is no use in deceiving you," 
 Fred replied; "he is the same Billy he has 
 always been; keen for a good time and 
 always a 'good fellow.' His position as 
 manager of the Gross Company needs his 
 undivided attention, but his nature is 
 such he must needs attempt more than he 
 can perform he is constantly going into 
 some new business, some side issue, which 
 distracts him for a short time, until some 
 one interests him in something else." 
 
 "I think I understand, Fred," I replied. 
 "But please tell me if you know whether 
 or not he is in financial difficulties." 
 
 "I do not know, Betty," he replied. 
 "May I ask you why you suspect that he 
 is?" 
 
 "Because," I answered, "he has borrowed 
 money from me twice during the last 
 year." 
 
 "Betty, Betty, you must not lend him 
 money," he admonished me. 
 
 I smiled. How easy it is for men to 
 give advice to women. I thought of the
 
 84 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 times when Billy came to me in trouble, 
 knowing I would help him. It was too 
 sweet a privilege to deny myself. 
 
 "Fred, I want you to talk to me," I 
 demanded, "of the work you are doing with 
 your newsboys' club." 
 
 "First," he replied, "you must promise 
 me not to keep on lending money to my 
 brother." 
 
 "You forget," I answered, "he is my 
 husband." 
 
 "I beg your pardon I have no right to 
 interfere I 'do not know anything of your 
 personal affairs, but I cannot help feeling 
 responsible for Billy's actions. You know 
 you are alone, among strangers. You 
 have no one to advise you a generous and 
 loving wife, you forget financial facts when 
 opposed to Billy's apparent needs." 
 
 "You are perfectly right, Fred," I replied. 
 
 As I listened to Fred I fought the little 
 demon within that dares to whisper sug- 
 gestions of Billy's unfaithfulness to me. 
 
 I prayed not to think unloyal thoughts of 
 my husband.
 
 XV 
 
 January j, 1908. 
 
 IT is months since I have allowed myself 
 to converse with the being that is I. 
 I am as a soldier withdrawn from 
 battle for a brief interval to examine my 
 wounds and determine if I have the 
 strength to return to the fray. 
 
 I have lived from day to day with the 
 fear of defeat hanging over me like an inky 
 cloud, and as I allow myself to question 
 the future I feel the chill of despair numbing 
 my being. 
 
 If it were not for my faith in the might 
 of right taught me by Dorcas I would 
 acquiesce to what seems my misfortune. 
 I would acknowledge myself unable to 
 bring back my husband to his plighted 
 troth. Strange are the ways of man 
 Charles Patterson has "eyes that see not 
 and ears that hear not" his wife's unfaith- 
 fulness. 
 
 For months we four souls have walked 
 on the edge of a precipice. I am on the 
 85
 
 86 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 outside, the only one who realizes the 
 awful depths below. I tread with careful 
 step, and hope by ignoring our danger I 
 may save us all. Billy walks beside me 
 with nervous, hasty steps that loosen the 
 precarious footing. He is so intently watch- 
 ing the Other One that he does not realize 
 my efforts to push him from the dangerous 
 edge. Charles is between the two foolish 
 ones, with eyes in the clouds, unaware of 
 the gaping chasm at his feet. Nelle trips 
 thoughtlessly along, her careless step send- 
 ing obstacles across our path that threaten 
 to trip us as we go the one who may 
 cause the fall of us all, but would probably 
 save herself and remain unhurt to pity 
 our fate.
 
 XVI 
 
 February 16, 1908. 
 
 FRED has been staying with us for 
 a few days. Billy said that Fred 
 looked as if he needed a few days' 
 home cooking, and invited him out to 
 spend a week. 
 
 Last evening I received word from Billy 
 that he would be out on the eight-thirty, 
 but at ten-thirty he had not come. Fred 
 and I sat waiting for him as the hours went 
 by. It was a bitterly cold night. The 
 wind whistled around the bay window 
 and the snow sifted under the window 
 sill; every few minutes the gale would 
 beat with fury against the windows. The 
 storm seemed determined to burst into our 
 cheery living room. 
 
 I sat by the lamp with my sewing. 
 Fred was almost back of me, by the open 
 fire. I raised my head as I listened for 
 Billy, and was amazed to see in a tiny 
 mirror opposite me that Fred was watch- 
 ing me intently as he smoked. I was 
 8?
 
 88 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 startled; then realized that he was uncon- 
 scious of his reflection in the mirror. After 
 a silent half hour he said : 
 
 "Betty, why don't you go to bed? I 
 will sit up until Billy comes." 
 
 "I would rather not, Fred," I said. 
 "Where do you suppose Billy is?" 
 
 "I do not know," he replied, "but I 
 know he will come home sooner or later. 
 You mustn't agonize over his misdemeanors. 
 It's mighty hard for you, but try and not 
 suffer so. Why, you have grown thin as 
 a rail bird this last year, worrying over that 
 brother of mine." 
 
 "Fred," I said, "you can't understand." 
 
 "I understand," he said, "that you must 
 be mighty unhappy. When I think of 
 what he is doing to you and himself and 
 all of us I get so mad I see red ! " 
 
 "Fred," I interrupted, "you mustn't!" 
 
 I had unconsciously raised my eyes and 
 saw in that little gold-framed mirror an 
 undreamt-of thing. I know now that as 
 the clock in the hall chimed twelve, I 
 prayed God not to have it so. I prayed 
 for strength to hide from myself the thing
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 89 
 
 that Fred's eyes, in his anger, unconscious 
 of my seeing, had revealed. 
 
 He jumped from his chair and began 
 pacing the floor, his hands thrust deep in 
 his pockets. 
 
 "Damn him," Fred cursed, "why can't 
 he behave himself?" 
 
 I left my work and stood close to the fire, 
 for I shook in a nervous chill, and my 
 heart throbbed suffocatingly in my throat. 
 A thousand thoughts swept through my 
 brain and left my body cold and weak. 
 I said to myself: " He must not love me; 
 I must not accept the knowledge." In 
 the midnight solitude of the house, made 
 more intense by the roaring of the elements 
 outside, I felt his nearness. I realized 
 against my will that this love, whose exist- 
 ence I ought not to admit to myself, was 
 astoundingly, marvelously beautiful to me. 
 I had never guessed it. The knowledge 
 came to me, and he must never know that 
 I know. I know that no power on earth 
 would cause Fred to willingly allow my 
 knowing. In an unguarded moment I 
 discovered his secret. As I leaned over
 
 9 o BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL' 
 
 the fire I experienced a throb of joy in 
 thinking, "I can absolutely trust him; 
 no matter what happens, I can absolutely 
 trust him. I have nothing to worry about 
 but myself." 
 
 Fred stopped his pacing of the floor and 
 came and stood a few feet from me, at 
 the other side of the fireplace. I did not 
 allow myself to look toward him. 
 
 I was aware then for the first time how 
 well I knew every expression of his fine 
 countenance and every line of his powerful 
 figure. I pictured him standing, gazing 
 into the fire, his broad shoulders ready to 
 accept the burdens of others, his keen eyes 
 always seeing the solutions of problems, 
 whether a business tangle or the shipwreck 
 of some floundering human soul, his firm 
 lips so just in their judgments, so kindly 
 in their utterances. I could see his phys- 
 ical being, even the way his straight, 
 thick, brown hair grew, although I did not 
 permit my eyes to gaze at him. But I 
 forgot immediately his physical outline 
 in thinking of his fineness. I had for- 
 gotten why we stood waiting together
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 91 
 
 I was almost happy in the sense of his 
 fineness and strength: 
 
 "Betty," Fred spoke. "I think Billy 
 is coming. Shall I let him in?" 
 
 "No," I replied, "please I will do it, 
 and I wish you would slip up to the guest 
 room. I can manage him better alone. 
 If I should need you, I will call." 
 
 As I opened the door I thought: "This 
 is the real the other is a dream." 
 
 I stood behind the open door, waiting 
 for Billy to steady himself, as the cabman 
 loosened his hold. I have been through 
 it all so many times! I heard Billy saying 
 good night with bravado and bluster to 
 Jim from Brown's livery, and I blushed 
 for poor Billy as I waited behind the door. 
 I turned on the extra porch light so Jim 
 could see his way back to his waiting horse 
 and snow-covered rig. 
 
 "Well, Billy," I said, "your meeting 
 kept you late. Come in, and let me brush 
 you off." 
 
 All the time I rebelled inwardly against 
 playing the farce, but my reason told me 
 it was the easiest way.
 
 9 2 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Why didn't you get to bed, Bet?" 
 Billy asked me. "As long as you're up, 
 let's sit by the fire and talk. I've had a 
 great day, Bet that Berkshire sale is 
 going through. Gus Peckam kept me 
 downtown with him to talk over prospec- 
 tive business in Vincennes. If I just had a 
 couple of thousand cash I could make 
 twenty-five thousand dollars in no time. 
 There's a great opportunity in that old 
 town just now. Say Bet don't you think 
 you would like to sell that street-car bond 
 on the C. & W. and let me invest it where 
 it will more than double?" 
 
 "Perhaps, Billy," I replied. "Tell me 
 about it." 
 
 I thought: "How can I bear this? 
 I am losing every bit of respect for him. 
 I know very well what would become of 
 my money, if he gets hold of it go where 
 the rest has gone, in wildcat speculations. 
 But I must humor him now and outwit 
 him when he is sober. I can't bear to look 
 at him I am so sick of his folly" 
 
 "Billy" I jumped up "please change 
 seats with me!"
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 93 
 
 ' ' Cer-tain-ly . Why ? ' ' Billy asked. 
 
 "Because I want to see to sew, " I replied. 
 I thought: " Dear me, I mustn't lie to him 
 but I can't bear to have him sit there, 
 full of alcoholic dreams, talking crazy 
 nonsense, when an hour ago a man of 
 noble purpose and unselfish devotion was 
 there in his place." 
 
 A few hours ago I did not know of this 
 beautiful, tempting love from now on it 
 will be with me always, until I die. Do 
 I wish I did not know? No, no ! I should, 
 but I cannot. 
 
 March 18, 1908. 
 
 Fred has been away for a month and I 
 have missed him more than I have allowed 
 myself to acknowledge. I must be very 
 honest with myself. I have found my 
 anxieties without the support of his un- 
 spoken sympathy inexpressibly harder to 
 bear. I have grown accustomed to the 
 comforting sense of his nearness. I have 
 learned to comprehend his generous thought 
 of others and tender solicitude lor me. I
 
 94 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 tell myself I must deny myself the privi- 
 lege of thinking of the existence of his love. 
 Temptation whispers, "What harm is 
 there in permitting my thought to dwell on 
 the sweetness of the knowledge that is 
 mine?" My reason fails to respond; the 
 instinct of holiness, tenderly nurtured by 
 Dorcas, burns my soul with its flame of 
 protest. 
 
 April 12, 1908. 
 
 At four o'clock yesterday afternoon Billy 
 talked to me on the'phone and asked me 
 to come in on the five-thirty, saying we 
 would go to the theater. I was much sur- 
 prised on getting off at the Grand Central 
 Station to have Fred meet me. He saw 
 my look of. dismay, for my first thought 
 was that something was wrong with Billy, 
 and he hastened to assure me that every- 
 thing was all right, but that Billy had 
 received word just a few minutes after 
 I had left on the five-thirty of the arrival 
 of some men from the West, whom he must 
 see immediately, and Fred had proposed 
 looking after me.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 95 
 
 He had come up to me suddenly, in the 
 throng of alighting passengers, with, "Well, 
 here you are, Betty." As he walked 
 beside me, shielding me with his strong 
 body from the jostling of the rushing crowd, 
 each eager to get ahead of the other, a 
 feeling of relief and security stole over me. 
 
 "Fred, I must go back home," I pro- 
 tested, "if Billy isn't going to meet me." 
 
 "No," he insisted, "we are to go to din- 
 ner and the theater, and Billy is to follow 
 us there as early as he can." 
 
 I ceased protesting. What can I do if 
 Billy thoughtlessly persists in planning 
 for us to be so much together? 
 
 We sat opposite each other at a tiny 
 table in a quiet and remote corner of the 
 Waldorf dining room. Intermittent waves 
 of melody from the orchestra reached our 
 ears. The hum of human voices kept up 
 its never ceasing flow around us. The 
 lovely raiment of the women shimmered 
 and their jewels flashed. Their attending 
 masculine companions emphasized their 
 loveliness by the contrast of their own 
 somber black and white attire. The waiters
 
 9 6 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 passed incessantly to and fro, serving 
 us seemingly superior order of beings. 
 Through our dinner I persisted in being 
 silent, for the purpose of listening to Fred. 
 
 He told me of the plans he had for 
 improving conditions for the men in the 
 factory, of the experiment he had made of 
 a paid visitor to help the mothers with the 
 children in sickness and other trouble, of 
 a clubroom for the boys, a place for them 
 to spend their evenings. 
 
 The materialness of our surroundings 
 ceased to exist for me. I was conscious only 
 of the big, fine man sitting opposite me, 
 telling me of the things that are worth while. 
 
 While we waited in the pleasant, expect- 
 ant atmosphere which pervades the theater 
 before the going up of the curtain I ac- 
 knowledged to myself that "I still have some 
 youth left." The evening melted away. 
 As the final curtain went down, a feeling 
 of desolation swept over me. 
 
 "Oh, dear," I thought, "I have forgotten 
 myself. I must hurry up and find myself. 
 I wish I did not care so much. Betty 
 Moore, you mustn't wish such things; a
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 97 
 
 nice state of affairs it will be when you 
 become as indifferent to suffering as you 
 were wishing." 
 
 Billy did not reach the theater or the 
 theater train, but there was a message 
 for me at home, saying he would be home 
 on the twelve-thirty. 
 
 After Fred had said good-night and gone 
 to his room I was surprised to find my- 
 self with a new and secure sensation of 
 happiness. 
 
 Fred's personality affects me, as I know 
 it does others, with a stimulating desire to 
 make the most of the best in life. 
 
 After all, it is something to have a mis- 
 sion, and I certainly have one, in attempt- 
 ing to keep Billy from ruin.
 
 XVII 
 
 April 17, 1908. 
 
 1AM acquiring a habit of going to 
 Elizabeth Bainbridge with my diffi- 
 culties. She seldom can leave home, 
 as she does her own housework. Therefore 
 I go to her, which is of itself a help. To 
 see her peaceful but busy home is an 
 inspiration. 
 
 What foolish victims most of us women 
 are to the machinery of ours! 
 
 To-day when I reached her house she 
 was seated before an immense basket of 
 mending, the ever-present volume by her 
 side. To-day it happened to be the Bible, 
 opened at Psalms. 
 
 "Well, Betty, what problem are you 
 bringing me to solve?" she questioned. 
 
 I blushed with the consciousness that I 
 always go to her for something. 
 
 "Do you know," I said, "I have just 
 
 realized this minute that this is a one-sided 
 
 friendship. I never give you anything; 
 
 but I demand monstrous things from you." 
 
 98
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 99 
 
 "My dear," she spoke with tender 
 seriousness, "on the contrary, it is per- 
 fectly equal. You bring yourself, which is 
 a pleasure to me; besides that, you bring 
 me the world in which you live. You save 
 me a great deal of time, for I can see 
 through your translation a week's life in 
 any hour." 
 
 "Yes, but what does that amount to? 
 As far as worth of living is concerned, a 
 week could easily be condensed into an 
 hour," I said disgustedly. 
 
 "Oh, Betty dear, don't allow yourself 
 to look at things in that manner," she 
 continued. "You have told me you don't 
 like your manner of living, but that those 
 are conditions over which you have . no 
 control. Now when a woman faces that 
 problem she must avoid pessimism. A dis- 
 satisfaction with yourself and with things 
 ignoble in your life is permissible, but 
 don't let that dissatisfaction develop into 
 a monster which casts a shadow so black 
 it prevents you from seeing a possible 
 unknown and beautiful opportunity. What 
 is it to-day, dear?"
 
 ioo BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Since you have convinced me of the 
 importance of the environment, even in 
 the earliest years, of our children's lives, I 
 have begun to lie awake nights worrying 
 about Sonny's future," I replied. "I have 
 been watching the older children of my 
 friends and noticing the conditions under 
 which they are growing up. One of my 
 friends, a mother of boys, said to me yester- 
 day that it seemed to her that present-day 
 civilization made it almost impossible for 
 her boys to escape the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil. Since infancy the boys 
 have been surrounded with every luxury. 
 The mother has been, as you describe it, 
 'busy,' and is just awaking to the realiza- 
 tion that there are no opportunities in 
 the home for the boys to learn to be useful 
 members of society. There seems no logical 
 reason for the boys waiting on themselves, 
 much less doing something for the other 
 members of the family. The father wishes 
 a large establishment and the requisite 
 number of servants. What can she, the 
 mother, do to create conditions where her 
 boys are called upon to exercise self-control
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 101 
 
 and unselfish service for others? Her 
 problem will soon be mine, only I have had 
 my attention called to the result a few 
 years earlier. Is the world different to- 
 day, or did mothers always have their 
 difficulties to encounter?" 
 
 "I imagine," she said, "mothers always 
 have and always will have problems to 
 solve and difficulties to meet, but I think 
 at the present day among the well-to-do 
 in this country the mothers must be very 
 wise and very strong to be able to control 
 the environment in the youth of their 
 little ones." 
 
 "Tell me, please, what you think I can do 
 for my boy, to make it possible for him 
 to become a fine, useful man?" 
 
 "The first thing," she said, "I would 
 try to do is to give him brothers and sisters. 
 Oh, I know what you are going to say," 
 as I started to speak. "Yes, you can 
 afford it, and your health will permit. 
 You have a big work before you, you women 
 of the twentieth century. You can't do 
 it all in your lifetime, but you can start 
 the pendulum swinging the other way.
 
 102 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 You can afford it easily, if you will spend 
 the same amount on four children that you 
 spend on one. Yes, it is perfectly possible, 
 and the child will be the better for it. 
 Use your brains and your hands; that's 
 what they were given you for. Your 
 health will be the better for bearing children. 
 It isn't the multiplying of your kind that 
 is causing the ill health and the nerves 
 nowadays. No wonder your husbands 
 don't want more children you make it too 
 expensive and unpleasant for them. You 
 aren't to blame for present-day standards 
 and conditions, but you will be shirking 
 your duty if you don't try, every woman 
 of you, to change them. Your child's 
 education begins with yourself. It isn't 
 necessary for him to have all his wants 
 gratified, any more than it is for you. 
 You know you are a lot better off if you 
 have things to wish for. Now remember, 
 Betty, this sermon is for you and your 
 kind, the wives of men whose income is 
 over five thousand dollars a year. If you 
 continue to neglect the use of your func- 
 tions the next generation of man borne of
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 103 
 
 your kind will be a helpless creature 
 physically, mentally and morally." 
 
 "I don't like to disagree with you, 
 Elizabeth," I argued, "but I don't see how 
 your remedy is going to solve our problems. 
 I can't understand how increasing the size 
 of our families will do away with all the 
 difficulties." 
 
 "It won't do everything, Betty, but it 
 will start you in the right direction and 
 make it possible for you to accomplish 
 the things your nobler instincts prompt 
 you to do. If you will study the world of 
 your child to-day your common sense will 
 tell you that things are all wrong. Of 
 course things never have been perfect, 
 but there are more opportunities now than 
 ever before in the world's history for mothers 
 to create and rear noble offspring. It will 
 be your own regeneration." 
 
 "Oh, dear, I can't quite grasp it," I 
 sighed. "Jean says it is quality, not 
 quantity, of children we want, and that a 
 woman has many more opportunities of 
 doing things for others if she isn't tied down 
 with babies, year after year. She thinks
 
 io 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 it is nobler to forego having many children 
 and use your time and strength for your 
 husband, your friends, and those less 
 fortunate. She says there is so much to 
 be done in 'bettering things.' " 
 
 "Of course you want quality, Betty. 
 That's a foolish argument. The women 
 who have one or two children among you 
 are not the ones who do the things Jean 
 suggests, unless it is spending your time 
 and strength visiting with your friends. 
 Leave the 'bettering of things in general' 
 to women who have raised their families 
 and to those who haven't any. You will 
 be able to do all such things later, when 
 you are older and wiser women. I don't 
 mean you are to be indifferent to the 
 world's pain. It is a near duty for you to 
 know of good and evil in the world you 
 live in, to be alive to any opportunity for 
 helping the good and crushing the evil. 
 If you learn to choose the essentials of 
 good in a woman's life, and stick to living 
 them, you will be doing your share of 
 your work toward humanity. - There are 
 a lot of noble women doing a big, hard
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 105 
 
 work for suffering humanity, and you can 
 help them right in your home; but help 
 them, don't hinder them, as many of 
 you are doing every day of your lives. 
 I can't understand how you women can 
 ignore your debt to humanity, as many of 
 you do. You seem to think your own lives 
 and your children's lives are your own, to 
 play with as you choose. You have no 
 right to cut yourself off from the big suffer- 
 ing world and say, 'I am going to do this 
 and that; it suits my own end and purpose 
 to do so.' You must consider your life as 
 a part of a whole; no matter how insig- 
 nificant an atom, it is a part of the big 
 All. It is impossible for you to fritter and 
 play away your own personal life without 
 injury to others. It is impossible for you 
 to hope for immortality unless you remember 
 the Others."
 
 XVIII 
 
 May 16, 1908. 
 
 \ 7ESTERDAY was one of those unsat- 
 
 Y isfactory days, a day when I rushed 
 
 from one social activity to another. 
 
 Playing in a golf tournament for the women 
 
 in the morning, I hurried home to dress for 
 
 a luncheon. The hostess was charming, 
 
 her home artistic, the luncheon perfect, 
 
 and the women guests were ornamental 
 
 in the extreme. 
 
 I started in the day dissatisfied with 
 everything and everybody, and particu- 
 larly with myself. I didn't like myself 
 or the things I was doing. If I had any 
 definite wish it was that I could change 
 places with some hard-working West Side 
 mother. 
 
 At luncheon I was seated between a 
 young girl who related to me the latest 
 bit of town gossip and a woman who had 
 nervous indigestion caused from her "busy 
 life." I looked longingly down to trie 
 other end of the table where Mrs. Morse 
 
 106
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 107 
 
 told, in her dignified, beautiful voice, of a 
 trip across the plains forty years ago. I 
 wished I were near her, to feel the soothing 
 effect of her presence. I am sure she 
 didn't spend her youth running around the 
 way we do. She has something back of 
 her, and approaches old age with dignity 
 and content. She is visiting her daughter, 
 who is just as foolish as any of us. 
 
 It seemed to me the women were unusu- 
 ally frivolous and meaningless in their con- 
 versation. When we meet each other after 
 a few hours' absence we have a way of 
 recounting in detail everything we have been 
 doing and saying in the interval. I could 
 hear Jean saying to Nelle: "I have just 
 rushed every minute this day. I got up 
 and took the eight o'clock train into New 
 York. I shopped like mad. I bought 
 shoes for Georgiana and a suit for Ray, 
 and caught the eleven-thirty back. Then 
 I jumped into the tub, with the children 
 calling to me about what they wanted to 
 do this afternoon. My hair acted awful, 
 and I had just ten minutes to get into my 
 clothes when Bertha Morgan called me on
 
 io8 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 the 'phone, and you know how she talks. 
 With Sarah hooking my dress and mother 
 helping, I managed to make it." 
 
 Now Jean is a fine, sensible girl under- 
 neath, and capable of being a real woman, 
 but like all of us she] does not seem to 
 be able to rise above her own material 
 civilization. 
 
 There are some of us who wish things 
 were not as they are. Perhaps if enough 
 of us decided to better things, to stop 
 rushing, and think, we might change this 
 material civilization into something nobler 
 and higher. 
 
 I was enjoying Mrs. Morse and her calm, 
 sweet face, when the "nervous indigestion" 
 woman said: "Oh, Mrs. Bennett, aren't 
 you glad you aren't as old as that lady 
 talking (meaning Mrs. Morse)? Don't 
 you hate to grow old?" 
 
 "Not if I could grow old the way she 
 is," I replied. 
 
 "You wouldn't?" she gasped in amaze- 
 ment. "Look at the lines in her face. 
 Now there's Mrs. Burridge, see, the woman 
 next to Mrs. Lamson, she must be as old
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 109 
 
 as Mrs. Morse. She has a married son, 
 but you would never know it." 
 
 "Yes, that is true," I replied. "How 
 does she do it?" 
 
 "Why, she takes care of herself, of 
 course; she has Madame Gascon for facial 
 massage three times a week, besides a lot 
 of other things. It takes a lot of time, but 
 it's worth it, don't you think?" 
 
 I looked at the two women, and I decided 
 it was not. If the arduous and time-steal- 
 ing care of the physical robs the woman's 
 face of the expression of the spiritual and 
 mental, I quite prefer the lines of time. I 
 did not quite say that to my questioner, 
 but I did say: 
 
 " I think I like the lines in Mrs. Morse's 
 face better than the smooth expressionless 
 roundness of Mrs. Burridge. " 
 
 "How can you!" she exclaimed in amaze- 
 ment. "You know husbands like to have 
 you keep young. You are liable to be 
 sorry if you don't." 
 
 Is that true? Must I sacrifice precious 
 hours, waste time and thought, keeping 
 my face round and young to gratify my
 
 no BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 husband's eye? Must I depend on my 
 physical charms to keep his allegiance 
 through the years to come? If I were a 
 man I am sure I should demand something 
 more satisfying than the youthful and 
 immature face of merely physical per- 
 fectness.
 
 XIX 
 
 June 16, 1908. 
 
 HAVING to keep quiet the past two 
 weeks on account of a sprained 
 ankle, I have had time to read a 
 number of books. 
 
 What a perfectly lovely thing it is to 
 have some "spare time"! I can imagine 
 an ideal condition where one would have 
 a few hours a week of "spare life," but I 
 can't come anywhere near creating that 
 condition. I have read fast and furiously 
 the past few days, as the living-room table 
 was piled high with new novels which I had 
 not had time to peruse. I don't believe 
 I am benefited in any way for having read 
 them. My mind is fairly saturated with 
 the paganism absorbed from their contents. 
 
 Do we, the people of to-day, live as the 
 majority of modern novelists depict us, 
 ignoring Christianity? I hope that these 
 modern novels are not true pictures of our 
 men and women, but that the writers 
 choose to create imaginary creatures,
 
 ii2 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 through whom they may preach their gospel 
 of paganism. The idea that these beings, 
 with their materialistic ideas, their creed 
 of fatalism, their belief only in individualism, 
 and their sensuousness, are us, is abhorrent. 
 - May we refuse to accept as a part of our 
 literature the novel of to-day, in which 
 the ethics of two thousand years' evolution 
 of Christianity is discarded for a new 
 paganism? 
 
 What has become of the belief in the 
 redemptive power of Christianity? Do we 
 ignore it in our own lives, as the modern 
 novelist does in his book? 
 
 I hope some men and women of our 
 to-day will arise from the vast throng of 
 writers and write books that our grand- 
 sons and granddaughters may read with 
 profit, books that may stand on the shelves 
 beside Dickens, Scott, and Hawthorne, with- 
 out mortification to us, teaching the funda- 
 mental truths of Christianity, reminding us 
 of the great transfiguring power of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 How are the coming millions of the 
 earth's human creatures to live their lives,
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 113 
 
 pass through affliction, suffer sickness, pov- 
 erty, and death, if they ignore the solace 
 of Christianity and accept the gospel of 
 fatalism preached through our books? 
 
 June 20, 1908. 
 
 I have accumulated large bunches of 
 resolutions during my enforced rest. 
 
 The first resolve is to arrange my waking 
 hours so that I may have a few intervals 
 of "spare life." 
 
 I remember in my childhood hearing my 
 dear and noble grandmother tell how she 
 reserved thirty minutes out of every day 
 of her life for herself, to be spent in the 
 quiet of her own room, reading and think- 
 ing. The books she read were real litera- 
 ture. She said that this interval of quiet 
 was invaluable to her; it gave her an 
 opportunity to acquire a sane point of 
 view of her surroundings and a chance to 
 hold her self-poise in the turmoil of living, 
 for adverse circumstances surrounded her 
 with difficulties to be met. 
 
 If she needed this hour of calm and suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining it, surely I may find
 
 ii4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 profit in following her example. I firmly 
 resolve to establish some regularity in my 
 day. It starts well, Billy leaving usually 
 on the half -past eight train for the city, 
 but while the day is still young the tele- 
 phone is liable to ring and a friend persuade 
 me to insert in my day's program some 
 unexpected doing. Jean, Nelle, or some 
 one will say, "Betty, jump in your electric 
 and come over; I want to see you about 
 something important"; or "I have to go 
 on the eleven-four to New York, and you 
 have got to go with me. " Although I often 
 make a feeble protest, of course I go, and 
 there is the end of that day. 
 
 The past week I have thought about 
 the irregularity of my life and made up my 
 mind it has a lot to do with my lack of 
 accomplishment. Why, I haven't any more 
 concentration than a flea, and there are a 
 lot of women as I am. The men go to 
 their business, the children to their school, 
 and we women to what? A little of 
 everything. No wonder we have become 
 "unproductive creatures." When one 
 thinks of the limitless possibilities of the
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 115 
 
 achievement attainable by the human in- 
 tellect, and compares it with the actuality 
 in our lives, the contrast is mortifying to 
 us women of leisure with "no time." We 
 have lost the appreciation of time, and 
 become victims of the nervous strenuous- 
 ness of the twentieth century. 
 
 Intellect and wealth spell power. Intel- 
 lect we women have dormant within us. 
 Wealth we have enough of to assure us 
 leisure hours. We are very valuable crea- 
 tures of this earth, if we estimate our worth 
 by the cost of our physical properties, food, 
 raiment, and activities. I shudder when 
 I compute what part of the world's pro- 
 ductions has gone toward my own existence 
 during the past year, and I shrink in self- 
 abasement when I think of my non-pro- 
 ductivity. I have absorbed this large 
 personal share and have yielded almost 
 nothing in return. If the amount had been 
 distributed among six women who use 
 their intellect and leisure time to good 
 advantage the world's good would have 
 been increased. I tremble with misgiving 
 when the question arises in my mind:
 
 n6 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Have I, by taking much and giving 
 little, added to the inequality of division 
 which has existed since the beginning of 
 history?" There is just so much to be 
 divided, and if I accept more than my 
 share am I not robbing some other? In 
 addition, if I neglect to disburse my ex- 
 penditures in a wise manner, am I not 
 misdirecting force? 
 
 Now while my resolutions are vigorous 
 I am going to set myself the task of accom- 
 plishing something essential to others each 
 day. Now while my brain is clear, the 
 result of the past calm weeks, I am going 
 to weigh the useful and the useless in my 
 days, and attempt to increase the former 
 and lessen the latter. I imagine it will be 
 almost entirely a process of elimination 
 at first. 
 
 June 21, 1908. 
 
 As I was in the midst of making a mental 
 map of my days Elizabeth Bainbridge came 
 to see me. 
 
 I told her what I was resolving and asked 
 her how I should commence the recon- 
 structive policy of my time.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 117 
 
 "I don't know how to begin," I com- 
 plained. 
 
 "Well, Betty, it depends on how much 
 in earnest you are," she said. "If you 
 mean to do things you will have to re- 
 adjust your point of view." 
 
 "Point of view, Elizabeth! Why, my 
 point of view resembles a lobster's! I see 
 things at all kinds of angles, and move 
 erratically and ineffectually forward, then 
 backward, mostly backward." 
 
 "Then," she continued, "after you have 
 readjusted your valuations " 
 
 "Excuse me, Elizabeth," I interrupted. 
 "What do you mean by readjusted valu- 
 ations?" 
 
 "Well, I imagine," she explained, "when 
 you begin to eliminate unessentials you will 
 soon find facts of your existence assuming 
 entirely different values than in the past. 
 Seemingly important major things will 
 become unimportant minor things." 
 
 "Tell me," I demanded, "how I may 
 reduce to orderly worth the chaotic worth- 
 lessness of my living. My life during the 
 last year has been a sort of continuous
 
 n8 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 performance of doing nothing in particular. " 
 "I don't believe, Betty," she said, 
 "your life is anywhere near as futile as you 
 believe it to be; but I will suppose it is as 
 you insist, and prescribe my remedy. I 
 would select, first, my duties, my near 
 duties, husband, children, and home. If 
 your instinct doesn't tell you what these 
 duties are, make a study of them. They 
 are before everything else your business. 
 We women of the younger generation are 
 apt to look somewhat disdainfully at the 
 painstaking domesticity of our mothers' 
 and grandmothers' generations. Yet our 
 swiftly moving, generalizing method has 
 fully as many disadvantages as their 'nose 
 to the grindstone' kind of housekeeping. 
 We need to study details and use our hands 
 more than we do. A small portion of the 
 day expended in physical exertion for our 
 home and children will assist in the order 
 you are desiring." 
 
 "Elizabeth, would you give up golf and 
 bridge, luncheons, teas, and matine'es?" 
 I interposed. "For I can't fulfill regularly 
 duties, however light, if I do those things."
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 119 
 
 "There is where your revaluation of 
 things comes in," she said. "// you prefer 
 those things to other activities and can 
 decide they help you live a more complete 
 life, if they do not interfere with your duty 
 to husband, home, and children, then do 
 them." 
 
 "With all those "ifs," I couldn't enjoy 
 them, you know very well," I complained. 
 
 "I would suggest, Betty," she said, 
 "that you choose one, or at most two, 
 of the frivolities, but don't attempt them 
 all. It is different when women have raised 
 their families or haven't any, but it's a 
 mistake for the young matrons to expend) 
 their energies in so many directions. You 
 harm yourselves, your husband, your living 
 children, and your unborn children, for 
 it is impossible for you to retain healthy 
 nerves with so many distractions. It 
 isn't because any one of these pastimes is 
 harmful, but because the American mother 
 of to-day attempts to enjoy multitudinous 
 amusements to the detriment of soul and 
 body. The young women, who are, or 
 rather should be, so important a factor in
 
 120 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 the civilization, present and future, ought 
 to reserve their best strength, physical, 
 mental, and moral, for the home." 
 
 "Elizabeth, don't you think," I ven- 
 tured, "if we gave ourselves up entirely 
 to home making we would become narrow, 
 uninteresting creatures in a short time?" 
 
 "No, I do not," she replied. "Home 
 making may become an artistic achieve- 
 ment. You may develop all sorts of 
 unexpected possibilities in yourself in per- 
 fecting the vocation of home making. 
 Besides, I did not suggest that you give up 
 yourself entirely to home. I said, let it come 
 first. It isn't first with you now, is it?" 
 
 "No, you are right; it isn't," I admitted. 
 "The calmness of the past weeks, I realize, 
 now you suggest it, is due to the fact that 
 I have been able to enjoy my domestic 
 duties free from hurry and the confusion 
 caused by too many outside interests; but 
 I don't like to think of reducing the number 
 of my friends, and I can't see how I can 
 increase my spare time without denying 
 myself the pleasure of their companionship." 
 
 "Of course," she said, "you will have to
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 12 1 
 
 do things you would rather not do if you 
 are going to reconstruct your daily living 
 toward the end you spoke of. However, 
 you do not need to reduce the number of 
 your friends; but you will have to elimi- 
 nate a good many hours of visiting with 
 those friends. The manner in which you 
 young women visit, visit, astonishes me. 
 
 "How can you give anything of your 
 real value to each other by this constant 
 and everlasting morning, noon, and night 
 companionship? Friendship is a precious 
 thing, but even yet, 'familiarity breeds 
 contempt.' True friendship does not de- 
 mand the constant being together of those 
 between whom it exists. You will enjoy 
 and profit more by the time spent with 
 your friends if the hours are fewer and the 
 interval of separation longer. The con- 
 tinual sharing of feminine confidences be- 
 comes a harmful habit that weakens the 
 moral fiber, and I am confident you will 
 have to acknowledge that you could con- 
 dense several days' intimacies with your 
 numerous women friends into a very few 
 minutes' conversation, if it were not for
 
 122 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 the habit you have of prolonged discussion 
 of trivialities. " 
 
 "Yes, I think you are right," I admitted. 
 "I shall be able to save time in that di- 
 rection, if I can persuade myself to do 
 it. Suggest something else, please." 
 
 "Well, another thing I would do," she 
 said, "is to curtail my shopping. You 
 women spend too much time and too much 
 money shopping. You could be happy 
 and comfortable with about one third less 
 than you buy. If you are content with 
 fewer clothes, several of your friends will 
 be also. Example is a contagious thing. 
 Every woman, with hardly an exception, 
 loves beautiful feminine apparel; but you 
 can be charmingly clad without forfeiting 
 your dignity, and it seems to me the habit 
 of adopting the latest dictates of Dame 
 Fashion, regardless of cost, time, modesty, 
 or comfort, is not dignified. Be more con- 
 servative in the robing of your person; it 
 will save you time, money, and strength. 
 What makes you smile, Betty?" 
 
 "I was thinking," I replied, "how dis- 
 tasteful your advice would be to most of
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 123 
 
 my friends and how uninterested I would 
 have been a year ago, before I knew you 
 and heard from you your valuations of life. 
 Now I can appreciate your views. Since I 
 have known you I have learned to look at 
 life in a different way. I have learned to 
 value things of whose existence I was 
 unconscious. The most important is the 
 realization of the unseen possibilities of my 
 life, to know, no matter though I am one 
 of billions of God's creatures, it is just as 
 necessary I should fulfill that which I may, 
 as it was when Adam and Eve walked under 
 God's commands in the Garden of Eden. 
 It matters if I leave undone any detail of 
 the work that in being born as I am I have 
 the possibility of doing. I have learned 
 to realize the importance of the closeness 
 of contact of my life with other lives. 
 While the responsibility of having my life 
 so interwoven with fellow creatures some- 
 times troubles me, through it I am learning 
 every day to appreciate more the mystery 
 of existence. How meaningless and foolish 
 my life would look if I were working out 
 my own little pattern. How full of meaning
 
 i2 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 and how dignified it appears, when I think 
 of it as a necessary thread woven through 
 the great whole. 
 
 "This, Elizabeth, you have shown me, 
 and now I know that it does matter what 
 you or I do, what you or I think. It 
 matters very, very much, in the great 
 scheme of civilization. No use saying we 
 are but atoms, we won't move the scales 
 in the balance. We might be just the one 
 atom necessary to change the balance for 
 either side, the perfect or the imperfect."
 
 XX 
 
 July 28, 1908. 
 
 I MADE Elizabeth Bainbridge go with 
 me for an automobile ride into the 
 country. We took two of her chil- 
 dren and drove into the woods, where we 
 spread a lunch for the youngsters. After- 
 wards, they played and we sat, pretending 
 to sew, but really just absorbing the sur- 
 rounding beautiful stillness and watching 
 the lights and shadows of the woods. 
 
 Thinking of Nelle's question of the day 
 before, I ventured to ask Elizabeth what 
 Nelle asked me: "Why did the Lord make 
 sex lust so strong in men?" 
 
 "I think the Lord made that instinct 
 thus for mighty reasons," she replied. 
 
 "Look, Elizabeth," I said, "at the awful 
 things that result from this lust of man; 
 see the hordes of humanity with vile 
 inheritance begotten of selfish men beasts; 
 see the broken women, a menace to civiliza- 
 tion, who drag out their weary hours, the 
 victims of sinful lust." 
 125
 
 126 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Yes, Betty, things ought to be better in 
 this beautiful world, with its wonderful 
 possibilities; and I have a hope in my 
 heart that they are going to be. You or 
 I won't see the things I dream are going to 
 come to pass. I believe the day will come 
 when woman will have the power to cleanse 
 the world of much sin; the hour is near 
 when men, despairing of their ability to 
 purify life, will ask women to help them. 
 Not in isolated spots of the globe, but 
 among all civilized nations men will demand 
 her support. 
 
 "The day would have come sooner if 
 woman had not failed in her development. 
 For the last two hundred years she has 
 been wasting her opportunities. Let her 
 fulfill her mission as a mate for man, 
 physically, mentally, and morally; let her 
 bring forth and rear with noble aims the 
 children of love, and she may joy in know- 
 ing that she is working toward the regenera- 
 tion of mankind. 
 
 "It is true that countless numbers of 
 ve.ry imperfect beings are being begotten 
 yearly; it is true also that women who could
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 127 
 
 have better children have been bringing 
 forth fewer every decade. That is going 
 to change. Women are becoming satiated 
 with the present effervescent civilization. 
 They are going to appreciate their privi- 
 leges, and the next two centuries women will 
 accomplish more than has ever been done 
 by women for the establishment of good 
 and right. 
 
 "Men are less lustful every century of 
 the world's history. When enough women 
 of our kind think it worth their while to 
 cease playing at living, and convince their 
 men of the tightness of overcoming the 
 existing evils of impurity, then will things 
 begin to change. Our men are the men 
 who can change conditions. They are in 
 the minority, but they can accomplish 
 great things if their souls are inspired by 
 high ideals. Who will create these ideals 
 for them ? We must. We, the puny 
 mothers of the twentieth century, pro- 
 tected and pampered, with no very good 
 excuse for being so treated. It's the poor 
 mother bearing her large family of weak- 
 lings who should be protected.
 
 128 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "We smile in amusement at the woman 
 screaming for the vote. She would not be 
 an object of ridicule, or shriek for a right 
 to help govern, if we would do our part. 
 She doesn't want the vote for herself, but 
 the ails of humanity have gotten on her 
 nerves, and if we won't help our suffer- 
 ing sisters she must attempt an heroic 
 remedy. 
 
 "We women can't houseclean the world's 
 morals. It needs the aggressive and sus- 
 tained force of the male to win moral as 
 well as physical battles in the world's 
 work, but we can supply a spiritual force 
 without which no great good may be 
 accomplished. We women must cease be- 
 getting sons and daughters with wills 
 weakened by our indulgences. We must 
 cease keeping our men's thoughts and 
 energies confined to material accomplish- 
 ments. We must cease arraying ourselves 
 according to the dictates of fashions 
 designed for the tempting of their physical 
 desires. We must forget our present 
 physical selves and work toward the future 
 ideal woman. Then will the man reach
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 129 
 
 out to the woman for help, and together 
 they will fight, and win against great odds, 
 when my dream comes true."
 
 XXI 
 
 August 2, 1908. 
 
 "\ 7ESTERDAY I went to New York to 
 j[ see Bridget Conway, whose baby 
 died suddenly night before last. I 
 climbed the narrow stairs up to the poor 
 little flat where she lives. My heart beat 
 in my throat when I reached the door 
 and knew it by the badge of mourning, 
 white and startling in the blackness of 
 the stairway. I suddenly felt that I must 
 turn and go down the steep black stairs 
 without knocking. I hadn't the courage 
 to meet what was behind the closed door. 
 Then the thought of Dorcas came to me, 
 and I knew I must go in. 
 
 Bridget was trimming an old hat, trying 
 to make its shabbiness decent to follow 
 the little dead baby to its burial. She sat 
 beside the wee, still thing, tearless and 
 brave. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Betty, you are surely come 
 in answer to me prayers," she said thank- 
 fully. " I thought I could dress the darlint, 
 130
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 131 
 
 but I can't. Whin I think it is for the 
 last toime, me fingers rafuse to move. 
 Could you, Miss Betty, dear, dress the 
 poor, precious lamb?" 
 
 The little garments, freshly laundered by 
 Bridget, lay ready to put on the still form. 
 Could I do it? 
 
 "Bridget, dearie, I will try," I said 
 
 The children in the flat next door were 
 shouting noisily at their dinner, the smell 
 of which, strong with garlic and boiled 
 cabbage, came floating in the window. 
 Bridget laid aside her hat trimming and 
 prepared a cup of tea for me as I, with 
 shaking hands, dressed her baby. 
 
 I grew centuries older as I robed the 
 tiny corpse. The feel of the cold clay, 
 the odor of death from the little body, 
 almost paralyzed my hands. 
 
 What is this thing, Life? Where is 
 the spark that a few hours before warmed 
 the now chill body of Bridget's baby? 
 Gone to seek the eternal, and she, poor 
 mother, must go on sweeping and baking, 
 her breast aching for the feel of its little 
 head, her soul longing to follow with
 
 i 3 2 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 protecting care the baby spirit gone on 
 its way alone into the vast unknown. 
 
 As I folded the tiny marble hands I 
 realized Bridget was asking me if she 
 might run down to the near-by church and 
 say a few prayers. I promised to stay 
 beside the bier until she returned. 
 
 While Bridget was away I knelt beside 
 the dead and tried to realize the meaning 
 of it. 
 
 It was the first time I had been close to 
 human death. So my Dorcas must have 
 lain; so my mother, whom I had never 
 known, slept, while I unconsciously cooed 
 and prattled. So all over this big world 
 mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives 
 anguished for the last hour by the side of 
 the beloved clay from which Life has gone. 
 
 After I left Bridget I walked up Fifth 
 Avenue until I reached St. Patrick's, 
 where the open doors of the great cathedral 
 invite the passer-by to stop and contem- 
 plate within its holy quiet the brevity of 
 human existence. I went inside and knelt 
 in a far, dark corner. Many quiet figures 
 passed in and out as I knelt. Of those who
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 133 
 
 came and went the majority bore the mark 
 of poverty and toil, but in all was the 
 dignity of purpose. They must work to 
 live, and yet they found time to visit their 
 Lord and pray not only for themselves 
 but for others. I shrank into my corner, 
 feeling a selfish, purposeless creature. 
 
 I had come to seek solace for the depres- 
 sion caused by my nearness to death, to 
 pray for the sparing of my dear ones, but 
 kneeling in the stillness I saw for a moment 
 the holiness of sorrow, and my prayers 
 seemed like my life, detached and selfish. 
 Among those toil-worn, earnest, praying 
 ones I felt the blight of my materially 
 comfortable existence. 
 
 Wfco am I, that I should play and luxu- 
 riate while these others work and weep? 
 Surely they are nearer God than I. I, 
 by my triviality, am denied the power of 
 living to the fullness of being. I wonder 
 why we spend so much energy trying to 
 escape the discomforts of life. I suppose 
 it is the instinct within us seeking something 
 better. When I think of the valuable 
 hours women of my kind use in seeking
 
 i 3 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 the comforts of mere existence, I wonder 
 why we do it. We would be happier, 
 better, nobler, if we would accept what we 
 have and use our energy in working for 
 the comfort of those who suffer. 
 
 In the stillness of the night, last night, 
 I could see the worth of human life. To- 
 day it seems slipping away from me. I 
 mean to keep some of those prayer echoes 
 that came to me in the cathedral yesterday. 
 The hour will come for me, and when it 
 comes it will be as the present hour, when 
 I will go into the vastness of eternity, as 
 Bridget's little baby has gone. 
 
 The awfulness of facing the knowledge of 
 life wasted! To leave this big suffering 
 world without knowing it, loving it, help- 
 ing it! This divine spark burning within 
 my own body, and, knowing the shortness 
 of time, I let it burn on and out without 
 doing its share toward lessening the pain 
 I leave behind! I resolve it shall not be.
 
 XXII 
 
 August 10, 1908. 
 
 BILLY came home yesterday afternoon 
 with a severe headache. He looked 
 white and wretched, and I guessed 
 that he was suffering more than the physi- 
 cal misery of a headache. 
 
 I followed him to our bedroom to see 
 what I could do for him. He threw him- 
 self on to the bed in an abandonment of 
 dejection. I stood and waited for him to 
 turn to me. 
 
 Finally he spoke, in a voice choking with 
 emotion. 
 
 "Betty, do you love me a great deal?" 
 
 I wondered what I must do to prove to 
 him the love he so often questions. I went 
 and knelt beside him. 
 
 As he lay there, miserably wretched, 
 craving a love which he doubts exists and 
 endures for him, my heart responded to 
 his need and I could say : 
 
 "Yes, dear; what can I do for you, 
 Billy?" 
 
 135
 
 136 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "When I tell you, Betty," he replied, 
 reaching up for my hand, "you will refuse 
 me." 
 
 "I will try not to," I answered; but I 
 feared to have him tell me his needs. 
 
 "Betty, I lost a lot of money to-day on 
 the Board I am dead broke!" 
 
 He rose up like a man, and looked at me 
 honestly, miserably. I breathed a prayer 
 of thankfulness. He was telling me the 
 truth; he had been unfortunate, but he was 
 not deceiving me nor acting the coward. 
 
 He needed my comfort in his defeat and 
 I, rejoicing in his manhood, crept close to 
 his heart, holding his poor weary head, 
 kissing his despairing eyes. I wondered 
 that I could be so happy with his sobs 
 sounding in my ears. His confession of 
 defeat, as he lay within the circle of my 
 arms, clinging to me for comfort, was a 
 chant of victory for me. 
 
 I saw for us the possibility of the happi- 
 ness of which I had been despairing. I 
 knew now I had feared he would deceive 
 me as he had done in the past, taking the 
 money I would let him have from time
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 137 
 
 to time for pretended well-paying invest- 
 ments, even paying me interest. His self- 
 deception had never allowed him to 
 acknowledge his mistakes. 
 
 Now he was facing the truth and suffer- 
 ing the agony of acknowledged defeat; but 
 was he not preparing the way for his happi- 
 ness, the real inner happiness of self-vic- 
 tory, the happiness which from a dream 
 in our youth may become as we live and 
 suffer a vision realized, a beautiful, intan- 
 gible something, the spiritual essence of 
 which we may take with us into the beyond, 
 yet leave behind its power working for 
 God's good? 
 
 August 12, 1908. 
 
 Billy went to New York in good spirits 
 yesterday morning, after I had given my 
 consent for the mortgage on the house. 
 I felt he had a right to that. He paid for 
 the home, and he must raise money some 
 way to pay his debts. I am trying to per- 
 suade him to sell the motors. I should 
 like to change our scale of living; but he 
 will not consent. He looked at me in
 
 i 3 8 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 amazement when I suggested his reducing 
 his expenditures by resigning from several 
 clubs at least. "It can't be done, Betty," 
 he said; "I must keep up appearances." 
 
 I find on looking over my accounts that 
 my own little fortune has dwindled to half 
 its original amount. I have been too 
 indifferent to business details, but I could 
 not have refused Billy even if I had 
 realized the condition of my affairs. 
 
 I should like to talk to Fred, but I feel 
 a hesitancy in doing so. He has done so 
 much for us, and if he realizes how my 
 means have evaporated, and the real con- 
 dition of things, he will try to do more. 
 It distresses me that Billy will allow him 
 to do so much. 
 
 I am wondering and questioning how 
 Billy is going to be able to meet our ex- 
 penses, and I am seeking the way to per- 
 suade him to live within our income. 
 
 September 2, 1908, 
 
 Billy has found a way for increasing our 
 income a plan that seems impossible for 
 me to accept, and yet I have not the
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 139 
 
 courage to protest. He has persuaded Fred 
 to come and live with us. Fred insists on 
 paying a sum out of all proportion to what 
 he receives, but he insists he will still be 
 the debtor. He says he wants to have 
 a "home," if only for part of the year. 
 Fred does not know of the mortgage on 
 the home, and I do not want him to. 
 
 Billy is growing haggard and wan. My 
 heart aches for him. 
 
 October 3, 1908. 
 
 I went out to walk with just Dan, the 
 setter, late this afternoon. 
 
 It is a solace to be alone in the big out- 
 of-doors. When I was a little girl I used 
 to think it was hard to have the sun shine 
 when I was unhappy, but I don't think so 
 now. I want it to smile and keep on 
 smiling. 
 
 The autumn leaves crackled and rustled 
 under my feet, the dry underbrush snapping 
 as Dan pushed his prying way through it. 
 All those dry leaves, tiny dead things, had 
 done their work; they had burst into life 
 with the spring warmth, gladdening the
 
 i 4 o BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 eyes of men; through the summer they had 
 sheltered God's creatures from sun and 
 storm; they had dropped, when their work 
 was done, to cold Mother Earth, giving 
 back to her from whom they had sprung 
 the essence of their tiny force undimin- 
 ished, to be used in producing more of 
 their kind the following spring. 
 
 I tried to imagine how much labor for 
 the "big outside" was due from me in 
 comparison with the power of the little 
 leaf I, endowed with immeasurable power 
 in contrast to it. 
 
 It must be a perpetual disappointment 
 to the divine Creator of men to witness the 
 failure of some of us to use our God-given 
 power. Does He ever regret the endow- 
 ment of us with immortality? I believe, 
 instead, He feels a divine compassion, even 
 in the misuse of His precious gift. At the 
 end, will I have preserved as much soul 
 force to send into the eternal as the tiny 
 leaf preserved of life-giving energy to give 
 back to Mother Earth? 
 
 Does the all-wise, all-perfect One rejoice 
 to receive a soul strong and vigorous,
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 141 
 
 ready to help in the beyond, and does He 
 not sorrow when any of us approach the 
 hereafter, our soul force weak and helpless 
 for divine effort?
 
 XXIII 
 
 December 14, 1908. 
 
 I HAVE tried numerous times to write 
 in this journal, but I have not suc- 
 ceeded. I had hoped to become 
 accustomed to Fred's daily presence, but 
 the days have become weeks, the weeks 
 months, and daily I must fight the same 
 temptations. The evenings are the times 
 of supreme trial, when I must behold the 
 brothers side by side, hear their voices, 
 answer their questions. 
 
 Last evening Billy had been drinking, 
 not much, but enough to make him irri- 
 table and unreasonable. Fred wanted 
 to talk to me about a sick child, a little 
 fellow in whom he had become interested, 
 the son of a man who worked in one of his 
 company's factories. Billy interrupted 
 persistently, until Fred despaired of con- 
 tinuing his conversation with me and 
 tried to interest Billy in a business argu- 
 ment. 
 
 I sat in silence, watching Sonny playing
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 143 
 
 in the adjoining room. I told myself: 
 "Billy is your husband, the father of 
 your boy." I attempted to stifle my 
 thoughts of Fred, but I did not succeed, 
 and rising, went to call the boy. 
 
 The little fellow ran to meet me with out- 
 stretched arms. With his curly head so 
 like Billy's at my knee, as he prayed for 
 us all my cry to the heavenly Father for 
 help was answered. The baby's moist 
 lips on my cheek, his pure voice, and 
 clinging arms, filled my heart with peace. 
 I knew that I would in anguish pray again 
 for help, but to-night I feel the assurance 
 that then, as now, my prayer will be 
 
 answered. 
 
 * 
 
 January I, 1909. 
 
 The wind blew and the rain beat against 
 the windows all last night. 
 
 What is this I am trying to find? I can 
 see only little patches of life. I have an 
 inner consciousness that life, clear, definite, 
 and perfect, lies outside there. I think I 
 must accept that it does. It is there, 
 only I can't see or understand it.
 
 144 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 The fact that I can't grasp things as they 
 are does in no way affect these things 
 themselves. I am urged by a constant 
 insistant instinct to attempt understanding 
 the perfect whole of which I am a broken 
 part. It is the belief in the beauty of the 
 unknown that causes the urgent desire of 
 knowing. 
 
 How wonderfully soothing to think that 
 through the maze of throbbing life the 
 way exists to clear sight and perfectness. 
 In hours of despair I fail to remember that 
 it, the truth, is there, and I, confused by 
 my seeing of things, make the mistake of 
 thinking they are as I realize them. My 
 prayer is to be able to keep my blinded 
 vision of existence from, warping and 
 distorting my soul, that when the light of 
 perfect knowing comes I may be able to 
 receive it.
 
 XXIV 
 
 REHOBOTH, VIRGINIA, May, IQIO. 
 
 1SIT by the window of a little house 
 which almost hangs from a mountain 
 top. Near and far, around me, roll- 
 ing hills and mountains, green with the 
 verdure of spring, rise up from a fragrant 
 earth. 
 
 Blue skies smile down upon me. The sun 
 is setting in a rosy glory, its departing 
 beams stealing into this window on the 
 mountain side. All is beautifully warm 
 and tender around me, but rebellion in 
 my heart chills my soul and body. I 
 dwell unfeeling amidst the beauties of 
 God's handiwork. 
 
 I look into my mirror and tell the 
 woman who looks back at me that she is 
 wrong, hard and cruel, but she does not 
 feel it. She says: "I cannot forgive the 
 man who has turned my heart to ice within 
 me." 
 
 She looks continually at the past. Over 
 and over again she lives the hour when the 
 145
 
 146 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 man with the blurred sight for dangers 
 ahead sent their child to his sad fate. 
 Constantly she feels the grinding of the 
 throbbing machine as under the man's 
 erring hands it became a living monster 
 of destruction. Persistently she sees the 
 wreck under which their boy lay crushed 
 and maimed she hears the little one's 
 moan of pain. 
 
 I ask that woman if she has no pity in 
 her heart for the man who caused the 
 disaster and who daily begs forgiveness, 
 and she says, "Not yet." 
 
 Fred, the man with the far-seeing, clear 
 eyes looking into the future, went to the 
 woman in her first anguish and said: 
 
 "Betty, your husband begs me to do 
 something to bring you comfort, and I, 
 knowing you cannot think just now of 
 anything but your child's suffering, have 
 thought for you. I know of a little town 
 where plain, simple folk live. Above, 
 nestled on the side of a mountain, is a 
 little house where you may dwell. There 
 is pure, sweet air for Sonny. Near by there
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 147 
 
 is work, hard work, for Billy. Do you 
 want to go there, Betty?" 
 
 The woman, trusting the man with kind, 
 far-seeing eyes, said, "Yes."
 
 XXV 
 
 REHOBOTH, May 29, 1910. 
 
 I SAT by my window on the mountain 
 top. The gleam of another setting 
 sun crept in and touched lovingly 
 the wan face of my crippled boy as he 
 slept in his cot near me. I looked at his 
 emaciated form, and rebellious anger surged 
 hot within me. I said: "I feel, I know, 
 nothing, but this child in his suffering." 
 
 The boy moaned in his sleep. I rose and 
 knelt by his cot, drowning my soul in my 
 mother's consciousness. My arms yearned 
 to hold his body to my heart. My soul 
 throbbed with aching desire to relieve his 
 pain. He awoke and looked into my eyes. 
 He asked: "Mother dear, when will I be 
 well?" 
 
 I forced my eyes to smile back into his, 
 and said: "Soon, darling, soon." 
 
 " Mother, there is daddy ! Daddy, mother 
 says I will soon be well. Will you take 
 me to the mine with you the very first 
 day?"
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 149 
 
 The man answered: "Yes, my darling." 
 
 As the father leaned over the child I 
 saw his eyes swimming with tenderness. 
 
 I thought: "How much better Sonny 
 seems as soon as his father comes." 
 
 I heard the father telling the boy of 
 the vigorous day at the mine, of the men 
 and boys, of the moving cars and the descent 
 into the darkness, and how the men worked 
 in the bowels of the earth, and what their 
 work meant to that big outside world 
 above them. 
 
 I prepared the evening meal, as the set- 
 ting sun stole into the little kitchen. 
 
 I saw and heard the father yearning over 
 our boy. The light from the sky enveloped 
 them, and the rebellion in my heart ceased 
 its pain. I was able to understand that 
 the father held deep within his soul an 
 agony of self-abasement and remorse. 
 
 June j, ipio. 
 
 Billy has gone to his work and Sonny is 
 sleeping. He awoke in the night in pain, 
 and for hours Billy held him in his arms. 
 I protest against Billy's working as he does
 
 iso BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 and sitting up with Sonny at night, but I 
 have yielded to his insistence that he be 
 allowed to nurse the child at night. Last 
 night he made me promise to lie quiet 
 when the child awoke. The moon's soft 
 light lay in white patches on the floor, 
 when I heard Billy saying: 
 
 "Darling, let's be quiet as little mice 
 and let tired mother rest. I will wrap you 
 warm, and tell you of the little boy I know 
 below us in the valley." 
 
 He told the child of the coal mine where 
 the little trains dart down into the black 
 earth, bringing back the power that makes 
 so many other trains move, of the men 
 who go cheerily down into the blackness, 
 leaving the sunshine above, that they may 
 provide for mothers and children a little 
 home like ours. I heard the loving, tender 
 voice of the father soothing the child, and 
 in the holy quiet of the night I saw a vision 
 of what might be. 
 
 This morning, seeing the same man going 
 to long hours of labor that he may attain 
 the manhood he believes he had lost, I 
 know my vision will come true.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 151 
 
 I think with gratitude of the man who 
 looked into the future and helped us in 
 our need
 
 XXVI 
 
 July, 1910. 
 
 THE weeks have slipped by, and I 
 have been too busy to write of 
 them. It is a different busy than 
 those restless days of Meredith life. In 
 June Fred sent Bridget Conway to me. 
 Bridget's husband was killed in an explo- 
 sion and she, poor dear, finds comfort in 
 caring for Sonny. She is such a capable 
 person, work vanishing as if by magic 
 under her touch, that I was soon left with- 
 out an occupation. 
 
 I said to her: "Bridget, what am / to 
 do?" 
 
 "Oi was thinkin'," she replied, "you 
 might find a heap to do down in that 
 dirty town." 
 
 And I had never thought of it! I had 
 been living up in the clouds, and down 
 below was work waiting for me or any one 
 with heart and hands. 
 
 Billy had spoken of a Mrs. Durgin. 
 He had heard she had a sick boy about
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 153 
 
 Sonny's age, and he wanted me to see if 
 the child was receiving necessary medical 
 aid. 
 
 I found Mrs. Durgin preparing the 
 evening meal. She apologized for the 
 house with the child sick she "couldn't 
 get around to the regular cleaning." Poor 
 creature, of course she couldn't! She had 
 been up since five in the morning, cooking, 
 washing, and nursing. She had been 
 married twelve years, and had seven living 
 children. 
 
 The sick boy, a child about Sonny's age, 
 was sick partly because his mother had 
 borne three children in four years, he 
 being the third, partly because of poor 
 food and unintelligent although loving 
 care. 
 
 I made several other visits. I found 
 houses full of children and tired women 
 everywhere. 
 
 After our own evening meal, and our 
 one ewe lamb had been lulled to sleep in 
 his father's arms, we went outside our 
 cottage door and sat on a bench which 
 Billy had built for Sonny to rest on.
 
 154 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Betty, dear, may I talk to you?" my 
 husband asked. 
 
 For the first time I realized that Billy 
 and I were alone since the tragedy in our 
 lives. It had been *"the boy" day and 
 night, week after week. We had only one 
 thought, "our child," and when I turned 
 toward him and saw him as he is, I was 
 amazed. I thought, "Who is this new man 
 do I know him?" 
 
 Fear crept over me. "Yes, Billy," I 
 answered. 
 
 I looked up at the stars. What would 
 he ask me? What could I say? Surely 
 my love was not gone, the precious thing 
 I had clung to and cherished; surely now, 
 if my husband cared as I had cared, I 
 could want this love. Why, oh, why, must 
 my heart lie cold within me? Why must 
 I feel as if I did not know this man, who 
 looked at me as I had prayed for him to 
 look when my heart was warm? Did he 
 read my thoughts? 
 
 He had put out his hand as if to lift mine 
 from where it lay beside me, but he did not 
 touch me. His elbows on his knees, his
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 155 
 
 hands clasped, with bowed head he talked 
 to me, but not of himself. He talked to me 
 of the men, the miners, and of their lives, 
 of their homes, their work, and their 
 temptations. 
 
 The moon went down behind the hills. 
 
 August, 1910. 
 
 * 
 
 It has become a habit with us now to 
 seek the out-of-doors every evening after 
 the little one sleeps. 
 
 I asked Billy last night what he thought 
 I could do to help the mothers of this town. 
 
 "I don't know where to begin. There 
 is so much to be done. At first I carried 
 delicacies to the sick children. Many of 
 the children are sick because the mothers 
 are worn out with the heavy burdens they 
 must carry, and of course the children must 
 suffer from lack of care. 
 
 "I see that many of the wives and 
 mothers in these poor homes, and undoubt- 
 edly it is a universal fact all over this 
 country, are ignorant of the work of order- 
 ing a home. They haven't learned how 
 to do the things they need to know
 
 156 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 cooking, sewing, and the proper care of 
 children. The American-born mother in 
 many instances, as well as the immigrant 
 woman, doesn't know how to practice 
 the economies of domestic life. She igno- 
 rantly wastes her sustenance. Of course 
 the immigrant wives are more ignorant in 
 other ways. In both cases, they are more 
 sinned against than sinning, I feel. 
 
 "Don't you think, Billy, these women's 
 children should be taught domestic arts 
 in the public school? I do. I think they 
 ought to be taught plain cooking, not a 
 smattering, but the practical doing of it, 
 the nutritive qualities of common articles 
 of diet and the best way to prepare them 
 for nourishing the body. 
 
 "Another important thing I think should 
 be instilled into the minds of the future 
 wives and mothers of the laboring class, 
 an ethical thing, is the proper valuation of 
 things in spending their meager income. 
 I know it is a perfectly natural impulse for 
 these women to hunger for the vanities 
 of life. When I think of myself I can 
 appreciate their wants, but it is pitiful to
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 157 
 
 see these poor creatures spend what means 
 better food, better health, and better liv- 
 ing, on things of no individual utility. It 
 is pitiful to see many of these women 
 purchasing cheap trinkets and useless 
 finery. " 
 
 "I agree with you," Billy interrupted 
 vehemently. "I should like to make it 
 impossible to manufacture cheap paste 
 jewelry and all the useless truck which our 
 country turns out by the ton." 
 
 "Well," I continued, "I suppose you 
 can't do anything like that. We can't 
 remove temptation from these poor simple 
 souls any more than we can for ourselves, 
 so the only way is to help them resist it, 
 for the school to teach them how to choose 
 essentials." 
 
 "There is so much," Billy said, "to 
 teach this generation that it is a puzzling 
 problem how to get it all in during the short 
 school life. " 
 
 "Yes, I know that," I said, "but don't 
 you think we could eliminate some things 
 and substitute the essentials of very simple 
 living?"
 
 i58 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Yes, Betty," he said. "The more I 
 see of the life of the big mass of our working 
 class, the more I feel things are wrong 
 which we ought at least to try to make 
 right." 
 
 "Where would you begin?" I asked. 
 
 "With myself," he replied. 
 
 "You are not so foolish," I exclaimed, 
 "as to regard yourself in any way respon- 
 sible for the suffering among these poor 
 miners and their families?" 
 
 "I said I would begin, dear," he replied, 
 "with myself. I don't hold myself exactly 
 responsible for the suffering in this or any 
 other community, but don't you think 
 that the genesis of all living is the indi- 
 vidual?" 
 
 "Yes perhaps," I admitted. 
 
 "Well," he answered, "I am an indi- 
 vidual; I and others comprise the state. 
 Each one of us is responsible for the result 
 of our percentage of it at least. " 
 
 "Dear me," I exclaimed, "I hadn't 
 thought of it that way. It is a mighty 
 serious thing then for us women to want 
 the vote?"
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 159 
 
 "I used to think," he said, "that it was 
 foolish; but since I have lived here close 
 to the human struggle for existence and 
 its suffering I have changed a lot of my 
 ideas for better ones, I hope. Now I think 
 we men ought to beg you to assume the 
 responsibility of voting. It would be a 
 profitable experiment for us to allow you 
 our privilege of the franchise and assume in 
 return the rights that you women have; 
 in other words, for the sexes to exchange 
 places as citizens of this country." 
 
 "Billy, is your mind unbalanced?" I 
 laughed. 
 
 "My heavens, Betty," he said, "it is 
 good to have you laugh like that. I would 
 give years of my life to have you like the 
 girl I married." 
 
 How strange is human nature and the 
 sequences of living! If I had been able 
 to be as I am, when Billy married me, I 
 might be as I was then, now. 
 
 "The change you suggest is surely radi- 
 cal," I protested. "If we women were the 
 state, and the state governed, what would 
 happen?"
 
 160 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Nothing very dreadful, I believe," 
 Billy maintained; "and it would only be a 
 temporary arrangement I am suggesting." 
 
 "What do you call a temporary arrange- 
 ment?" I asked. 
 
 "A century at least, " he replied. "Men 
 have made the laws and ruled the world 
 since its beginning, but the world has 
 reached a stage in civilization which 
 demands the arresting of the tendency 
 of mankind toward materialism. Some 
 mighty spiritual force is needed to check 
 this tendency. I cannot believe, with the 
 melancholy philosophers, that mankind 
 is capable of rising so high, then falling, 
 burying the achievements of ages in a great 
 catastrophy from which man must again 
 painfully and slowly arise, in time to repeat 
 the calamity. You admit, Betty, that 
 women are more spiritual than men. To 
 retain an ideally moral civilization, the 
 majority of the voters should cherish the 
 ethical ideals of Christianity. Which sex, 
 so far in the world's history, has been more 
 morally spiritual?" 
 
 "The woman," I admitted.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 161 
 
 "The materialism of the present," he 
 continued, "eliminating the consciousness 
 of God and ignoring the belief in an over- 
 ruling Providence, is undermining the 
 foundations of the government. Who* can 
 supply the moral-spiritual force in the 
 government?" 
 
 "The woman, I suppose you mean," I 
 replied. 
 
 "Yes, I do. Our civilization is hurrying 
 on to some disastrous end, I am sure, unless 
 this moral power is supplied. " 
 
 "Suppose," I argued, "that you had 
 supernatural power to bring about this 
 ridiculous arrangement of things, would 
 you expect women to supplant men in the 
 many places now filled by them? Think 
 of the physical inequality of woman, and 
 in many instances the mental." 
 
 Billy replied : " The fact that women are 
 far from the equal of men in brute force 
 is one reason why I would give them the 
 protective power of the franchise. The 
 world to-day seeks to support governments 
 by moral rather than by physical power. 
 Why can't we, the chivalrous nation of
 
 1 62 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 Americans, subjugate the physical in men 
 and supply the spiritual in our government 
 by voluntarily giving the preponderance 
 of power into the hands of women?" 
 
 "I see so many objections to it," I pro- 
 tested. "Think of the throngs of foolish, 
 light-headed women in this country think 
 of them, having the destiny of our country 
 in their incapable hands." 
 
 "Betty, did you ever realize that these 
 women are in the minority? They will 
 soon be extinct, because they are ceasing 
 to reproduce their kind. It's the sturdy, 
 fine, middle and lower classes, as we call 
 them, who would rise and exercise their 
 privilege. Don't you believe, if a small 
 percentage of you women with intellect 
 and the knowledge of better things would 
 take the time and trouble to tell these 
 women that their children's well-being 
 depended on their learning and exercising 
 honestly their power, they would make 
 better voters than their husbands, who are 
 not guided by motives as holy as mother 
 love?" 
 
 "Perhaps perhaps," I said; "but what
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 163 
 
 will happen when man is no longer the 
 authority in the household? He is the 
 breadwinner. " 
 
 "Other things," Billy replied, "would 
 have to be done such as regulating the 
 disbursement of the family's income, allot- 
 ting to the wife a fair percentage of her hus- 
 band's wages." 
 
 "Suppose," I interrupted, "the wife 
 should take the salary and spend an unfair 
 portion on herself and children, depriving 
 him of home comforts?" 
 
 "For my part," Billy answered, "think- 
 ing of the centuries of oppression of the 
 poor women who have drudged, borne chil- 
 dren, and suffered, without means of relief, 
 I should like to see the male of the lower 
 classes in subjection for a century at least. 
 However, the women who do not have to 
 labor, the women in this country who have 
 so much freedom of person and means, 
 would soon find enjoyment in regulating 
 the laws concerning household manage- 
 ment. The women who are light-headed 
 and useless would become useful mem- 
 bers of society, if they felt and saw the
 
 i6 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 need of their existence for humanity. " 
 "Billy, I believe," I said, "you want 
 to modify the constitution of the United 
 States simply to give us women of to-day 
 a vocation, a chance for showing what 
 stuff we are made of. Do you think we 
 are intelligent enough to assume control 
 of things?" 
 
 "I think," he replied, "that it is safe to 
 give you unlimited power. You are intel- 
 ligent enough to assume only as much 
 responsibility as you can faithfully perform. 
 If you made mistakes it would imme- 
 diately reflect on your well-being. The 
 woman cannot escape the possibilities for 
 suffering that her being a woman ordains. 
 There are so many ways for her to be hurt ! 
 If every woman were a queen she would 
 still be powerless to protect herself from 
 suffering; her spirit, her intelligence, her 
 physical being are more sensitive than the 
 man's. With unlimited power, she is abso- 
 lutely dependent on man for the happiness 
 most women crave. If she were absolute 
 ruler of the hearth, to be happy the average 
 woman must have the love of her husband.
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 165 
 
 Therefore I maintain that woman would 
 not abuse even the preponderance of power, 
 because it would not bring her happiness. 
 They are nearer the throbs of humanity's 
 aching heart because of their ability to 
 suffer more than men. If the women of 
 this or any other country had given them 
 to-morrow the unrestricted power to rule 
 they would, through their humanity, find 
 a way to relieve the heavy burdens of the 
 poor. I don't believe in socialism that 
 isn't the way to better things but I am 
 sure that there is a way, and I believe the 
 women of our country will find it, in spite 
 of the heavy hand of some men restraining 
 their desires." 
 
 "Billy, Billy, what wonderful things you 
 believe of us women," I said. "I am 
 afraid you are believing in our sex beyond 
 our possibilities." 
 
 " No, no, I am not, " he declared. " The 
 most perfect being in the world my wife 
 has taught me the true valuation of woman- 
 kind."
 
 XXVII 
 
 September 2, igio. 
 
 WE sat out tinder the stars. I had 
 a feeling that we two were alone 
 between the earth and sky. Billy 
 had been very quiet, and I felt he wanted 
 to speak of ourselves. At last he spoke. 
 
 "Will you forgive me if I talk about 
 myself? I have not earned a right to ask 
 anything from you yet but tolerance of 
 my existence, but I seek the relief of unbur- 
 dening my soul to you. I feel the need of 
 telling you what you have given me. I 
 came into your life and brought you sad- 
 ness, unrest, and misery; you have given me 
 the joy of knowing a perfect love and the 
 possibility of redemption from my baser self. 
 
 "I, poor silly fool, did not realize what 
 I was doing. I accepted your beautiful 
 love and went on carelessly enjoying the 
 vanities of life, unconscious of this thing 
 which had been given me. Then, later, I 
 met a woman who stirred my man's nature 
 to its depths. I know now that from the 
 
 166
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 167 
 
 time you came into my life your spirituality 
 cried out to my sleeping soul. I ignored 
 the demands of my better nature, but 
 unconsciously have been influenced by 
 you. I had the feeling as if I were dream- 
 ing a bad dream, and a gentle voice were 
 trying constantly to awaken me. It is use- 
 less to burden you with my agony of regrets. 
 
 "I could kill myself when I think what 
 I have caused you to suffer. I cannot 
 speak yet of that tragedy of which I, in 
 my drunken folly, was the cause. When 
 the bitterness of remorse came, if it had 
 not been for the realization of you you 
 in your pure womanhood I would have 
 ended everything for myself in ignominious 
 death. If I had not known your noble 
 love and been unconsciously influenced 
 by it during the years I ignored its exist- 
 ence denying my better self the privilege 
 of asserting itself I would not, when the 
 deciding came, have had the power of 
 appreciating the worth of things. Your 
 sweet soul has dragged mine from the doors 
 of hell." 
 
 I had not moved or spoken while my
 
 1 68 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 husband talked. I tried to tell him I could 
 forgive him, but I thought: "I cannot 
 honestly give him my forgiveness; I hate 
 the littleness of my soul; he suffers more 
 than I I know he needs the comfort of 
 my forgiveness. Sonny, my little boy, 
 my mother's hurt for you refuses to for- 
 give I cannot, oh, I cannot yet." 
 
 October 27, ipio. 
 
 During the months we have lived on 
 this glorious mountain top Fred has been 
 seeking for medical aid to send us. Yester- 
 day a grave, quiet man from over the sea 
 came to us. I stood silent while his skillful 
 hands read the history of Sonny's sick 
 body. When he came toward me to tell 
 me what I must know I could not raise my 
 eyes to meet the truth, and then I heard, 
 as from a great distance, his sweet and 
 tender voice saying, "I can give Dorcas' 
 little sister the hope that some day her 
 boy will recover." 
 
 Fred had sent to me the man who had 
 watched while Dorcas' pure spirit left its 
 earthly home.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 June 20, 1911. 
 
 THE days follow each other in rapid 
 succession. 
 
 To-day "Elizabeth House " was 
 opened. I smile when I think how each of us 
 enjoys our own imaginings. When I think 
 of Elizabeth House I see an enchanted 
 palace where many of these worn, despair- 
 ing mothers are going to find new strength, 
 new hope; where babes are going to dream 
 sweet dreams, cuddled between clean sheets, 
 surrounded by fresh air and sunshine. 
 The sweet dreams I hope may become 
 realities, for Elizabeth House is to be the 
 home of new living for many little ones in 
 this community. 
 
 To me it is a beautiful dream come true, 
 a realized possibility for helping the mothers 
 here toward better things. Besides the joy 
 of the thing itself there is the happiness of 
 knowing that its existence is due to Billy. 
 
 During the past six months he has 
 studied the needs of this community, and 
 169
 
 1 70 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 he finally decided to build this house and 
 begin carrying out his ideas there. 
 
 Billy came to my room early this morn- 
 ing and said: " Betty, dearest, will you 
 come out here? I want you to see this 
 sunrise. " 
 
 The sun was coming up through a trans- 
 parent silver mist, its rays kissing the 
 mountain tops. The valley lay shrouded in 
 the mystery of floating fog, but half way 
 up the mountain side the sun's rays illum- 
 ined the windows of a new house. He said : 
 
 "Do you see that house with the sun 
 shining on it?" 
 
 "Yes, I see it," I answered, "and its 
 being there makes me very happy." 
 
 "Do you know," he asked, "its name?" 
 
 "No, I hadn't thought of that," I said. 
 
 "Well, its name is 'Elizabeth House,' 
 and it is a gift to this town on the birthday 
 of the sweetest woman in the world." 
 
 Billy said the words as if he were repeat- 
 ing the Litany. 
 
 "Billy," I said, "you dear boy, how did 
 you ever think of such a wonderful birth- 
 day gift!"
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 171 
 
 I thought: "If he would only look at me 
 now he would know the ice in my heart 
 is melting. I want to tell him, but I can't; 
 I call him a 'dear boy,' but I feel strange 
 and awed in the presence of this new man. 
 Why can't I put my arms around his neck 
 and draw him to me? I can't; he has 
 been my boy so long, my weak, erring child, 
 that now he is a man a new, strong, self- 
 reliant man I do not know him. " 
 \" Betty, " he said, "look at the smoke 
 coming up from the chimney. That is 
 the smoke from your birthday candle 
 it will keep on burning, dearest, bringing 
 light and happiness to those souls below 
 us in the valley." 
 
 October 18, 1911. 
 
 Elizabeth House is a plain wooden struc- 
 ture situated half way up our mountain. 
 Billy hesitated about building it here. It 
 seemed in some ways as if it were wiser 
 to have it nearer the town, but we decided 
 that the advantage of the mountain-side 
 location offset the disadvantage of dis- 
 tance. It is a settlement house and a
 
 172 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 resting hospital combined. Worn-out 
 mothers come here for a few days' rest, 
 bringing their children if they wish, but 
 usually some neighbor takes charge of the 
 children and boards the husband in the 
 absence of the resting mother, who in turn 
 does the same for her. They are wonder- 
 fully land to each other, these hard-working 
 creatures. 
 
 The visiting mother rests the first few 
 days. She has her meals in bed. The 
 nurse waits on her and reads to her if she 
 desires it. Soon she begins to look out of 
 her window at the mountain tops and the 
 sky. She hasn't had time before for such 
 things, but as she lies there, with clean things 
 all about her and the sweet smell of the out- 
 of-doors drifting in her window, her eyes 
 see before her through that window the 
 sunlight shining from above. She looks 
 down into the valley, and thinks of her 
 husband working in the shadows. She 
 resolves to take back to her home some of 
 the sunlight and the knowledge of these 
 things above. 
 
 Later the children come for a visit. We
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 173 
 
 reserve only two rooms for the settlement 
 work, which resembles in a small way the 
 work of city settlement houses. We have 
 been wonderfully fortunate in securing the 
 help of trained persons to carry on this 
 work. For that we are indebted to Fred. 
 He insists on doing that 'part; and he 
 always knows just the person who is eager 
 to come down here and work in Elizabeth 
 House. 
 
 Sonny is so much better that he is able 
 to be carried down to the House every day. 
 He plans games for the little children. It 
 has brought a great deal for him to think 
 about during the long hours he must lie 
 on his cot doing nothing. The children 
 gather around him and tell him of the town 
 in the valley, and he in turn tells them of 
 the mountain top. 
 
 It is strange, but few of the children went 
 beyond the town until the building of this 
 House. It is a place to come to. They 
 must pass through meadows and under 
 trees to reach it. They must look up and 
 see the sun shine above them. They 
 must hear the singing of the birds in the
 
 i 7 4 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 branches. They cannot help but feel the 
 sacredness of the stillness of nature, and 
 be better for the climbing.
 
 XXIX 
 
 November I, IQII. 
 
 THE days of purple haze and misty 
 frosts are here. Billy and I spend 
 four evenings a week at the House. 
 The other three we reserve for ourselves. 
 During our home evenings we discuss 
 the many details concerned with the run- 
 ning of Elizabeth House, and we talk of 
 the future. We see ahead possibilities 
 reaching up even to this mountain top. 
 Billy has worked and watched the life 
 about him with such intensity that he 
 feels it through all the fibers of his body, 
 mind, and soul. I wish* I could bring into 
 my efforts for the women the same natural- 
 ness that Billy has in his association with 
 the men. He is one of them he knows and 
 understands their trials, their hardships, 
 and temptations. He seems to be inspired 
 with a divine humanity. His humility is 
 boundless. His constant attitude is an 
 expression of gratefulness toward this 
 laboring, suffering community. 
 
 175
 
 i 7 6 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 I watched them from an adjoining room 
 last night as he played a card game with 
 them. They never seem to think of the 
 difference in their births his and theirs 
 but the way they say "Bennett, the Boss" 
 brings tears of joy to my eyes. 
 
 "Betty," he said, as we walked home 
 under the glittering heavens, "Betty, how 
 about our future? Shall we go on living 
 indefinitely in this little community? 
 Are you happy, dear?" 
 
 "This life," I replied, "is very satis- 
 fying to me; but it is a hard one for you. 
 Are you wishing for something different?" 
 
 "Don't misunderstand me," he con- 
 tinued; "I am thinking of you and Sonny, 
 and others such as these people in this 
 valley. We have started a work here that 
 others may carry on. We both feel, 
 don't we, that this is only doctoring the 
 sick, not removing the cause of the disease?" 
 
 "Yes, Billy," I replied, "that is true." 
 
 "Fred has been writing of an oppor- 
 tunity for me to go into political life. 
 Father, as you know, was a political power 
 in our state and exerted all his influence
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 177 
 
 for the betterment of the people. I inherit 
 with his name the possibility of future 
 power in the political field. With this 
 political opportunity I might be of service 
 to these people and their kind, by working 
 for the enactment of laws for the improve- 
 ment of existing conditions. Then too, 
 Betty, an uncle of ours left us a lot of land 
 out West years ago. We never imagined it 
 would be worth much, but Fred writes 
 now that ore deposits have been discovered 
 on it, and he has had an offer for it that will 
 make us all rich. I don't deserve all this 
 good fortune, these opportunities; it's all 
 due to you and Fred. You have made me 
 worth saving, and Fred has made the 
 opportunities to make me see the reason 
 for living. What do you think I should 
 do, Betty?" 
 
 "I don't know," I replied. "Where can 
 you do the most for those you wish to 
 help?" 
 
 "I am not sure," he replied. "There 
 are so many things to consider. When 
 I was first awakened to a sense of obli- 
 gation to my fellow man I was overwhelmed
 
 178 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 with a desire to relieve the needs of the 
 poor. I imagined if members of society 
 who had an abundance of this world's 
 goods but felt as I felt, and would give of 
 their bounty, the misery of ^the world would 
 be relieved. My desire to alleviate human 
 suffering has increased since I have lived in 
 the midst of the daily witnessing of misery, 
 but I realize now that the giving is not 
 enough. It comes first, of course the 
 immediate relief from cold, hunger, pain, 
 and the different forms of human suffering 
 which poverty and ignorance engender. 
 As the days have passed, and I have watched 
 the conditions of the laboring ones, I have 
 asked myself: 'What causes the poverty 
 of this individual? What the suffering 
 of that one? What will prevent these 
 things?' I am only one man, only one 
 individual. I cannot change the current 
 of society. I can only do one man's work; 
 but I am anxious that every atom of my 
 energy should be used in the right direc- 
 tion for the bettering of men and women 
 such as our poor neighbors. I have youth, 
 strength, and financial help to a moderate
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 179 
 
 degree. I have a wife who sympathizes 
 with my desires. Where do you wish to 
 begin, Betty?" 
 
 "Oh, dear," I sighed, "I have asked my- 
 self that over and over again. Being a 
 woman, of course the mothers and children 
 appeal to me personally. I think I shall 
 use my efforts toward helping the mothers. 
 There are innumerable things which appeal 
 to me but, as you say, I am only one woman. 
 Isn't there something very wrong with 
 an industrial condition which drives women 
 and children into factories and creates 
 more paupers than even the charity of 
 a generous people can alleviate?" 
 
 "There must be, Betty," he replied. 
 "To me this problem appears like a great 
 battle for the Right. The condition of 
 this country seems something like my 
 own individual experience. Through no 
 merit of my own I grew up into a vigorous, 
 healthy man, endowed with all kinds of 
 blessings and surrounded with possibilities 
 for the fulfilling of my destiny in a worthy 
 manner; like this country I became indif- 
 ferent to the spiritual significance of living
 
 i8o BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 and enjoyed my material prosperity. My 
 awakening came as this country's has 
 come, aroused from lethargy and indiffer- 
 ence by the voice of suffering and the cry of 
 the spirit. When I awoke to consciousness 
 of the reality I was, like my country, sur- 
 rounded on all sides by the accusing facts 
 of suffering, which had been happening 
 while I followed the inclination of material 
 desires. There is an enormous problem 
 for me as an individual, as well as for 
 our country as a whole, to solve. Although 
 I should like to believe that all men desired 
 the good of their country and the allevia- 
 tion of suffering for humanity, in prefer- 
 ence to an over-abundance of personal 
 material prosperity, reason and facts tell 
 me that many are indifferent to the spirit- 
 uality of civilization and concern themselves 
 only with their personal existence, un- 
 conscious of their unfulfilled ethical respon- 
 sibilities to their country and to humanity. 
 Such being the case, there is to be a mighty 
 struggle between those who care for others 
 and those who care only for themselves. 
 "It is distressing in the present crisis
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 181 
 
 of industrial civilization to think how much 
 good human energy must be expended to 
 restrain those who do not care for the good 
 of humanity from retarding and inter- 
 fering with those who do, in the awakening 
 of the spirit of civilization. There is such 
 an enormous amount of work for our 
 country to do now that she is aroused that 
 it will be no wonder if she staggers in the 
 wrong direction in a few instances; but 
 the battle for the right has begun, and if 
 each individual of us who cares man, 
 woman, or child will use our living and 
 our efforts in the right direction, the victory 
 will be won in spite of seemingly impossible 
 obstacles." 
 
 "But isn't that the trouble, Billy?" I 
 asked. " Does not a feeling exist among us 
 all that some one else will do the work some 
 far-seeing, capable, public-spirited citizen 
 who has more time or money than we 
 ourselves?" 
 
 "Yes, I am afraid that is true," he 
 answered. "It probably has a good deal 
 to do to-day with existing industrial con- 
 ditions and human woe. Many of us who
 
 182 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 
 
 would care and would try to do our share, 
 if we thought it concerned us, are too busy 
 living our own lives to realize that any 
 effort is needed by us personally to help 
 adjust mighty problems. We forget to 
 ask ourselves, 'Who is my brother's 
 keeper?'" 
 
 November 6, ign. 
 
 The mountains rise in majesty around me, 
 and the twinkling stars send out thousands 
 of shining rays. I breathe the perfume of 
 the fragrant earth, whence millions of tiny 
 flowering things send their homage to the 
 skies. The moon shines down, and from 
 the height I see the shadows hovering over 
 the earth. I have dwelt in the shadows 
 and they will, perhaps, again envelop me, 
 but I shall have with me always the knowl- 
 edge of the mountain top. I see my hus- 
 band climbing upward, and the light from 
 above encircles him and shines before him 
 on the road as he climbs. The future 
 stretches before me, beckoning me to 
 better and nobler things. Peace, gentle, 
 tender, satisfying, hovers over me. From
 
 BETTY MOORE'S JOURNAL 183 
 
 out the eternal, the soul of my beloved 
 sister Dorcas bids me work on, hope on, 
 love on, until the hour comes for me to 
 follow her into the glorious Beyond.
 
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