s m 
 
 PHY 
 
 
 
 DERLY WOMAN 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 
 ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OP 
 AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 Aa soon as you feel too old to do a thing, 
 do it." Margaret Deland. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, IQII, BY HOUGHTON MIFFUN COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September IQII 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE SHADOW OF AGE 
 II. MY MOTHER S HOUSE .. 
 
 III. THE CONVENTIONS OF AGE . 
 
 IV. OTHER PEOPLE S MEDICINE . 
 
 V. THE COMPENSATIONS OF AGE . . .99 
 
 VI. THE SPENDING OF TIME .... H3 
 
 VII. THE LAND OF OLD AGE -130 
 
 VIII. GRANDMOTHERS AND GRANDCHILDREN . 151 
 
 IX. YOUNG PEOPLE AND OLD . . 175 
 
 X. UNSPOKEN WORDS . . * . 199 
 
 XI. THE ISOLATED GENERATION . . .219 
 
 XH. LENGTHENING SHADOWS . 237 
 
 XIII. GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY . . .253 
 
 786713 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 
 ELDERLY WOMAN. 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE SHADOW OF AGE 
 
 As I look back over my life, it divides 
 itself into four parts. First come all the 
 years before I married, and as I look 
 back on my childhood and my short 
 girlhood, it seems to me as though I 
 were remembering the life of some other 
 woman, for during these many years I 
 know that I have changed several times 
 from one person to another, and the 
 world about me has had time to change 
 also. All that early part swims in a fog, 
 with here and there events popping out 
 of the mist, more distinct than those 
 a week past, often meaningless and 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 trivial events these; I cannot tell by 
 what caprice memory has elected to 
 keep them so clear. Lately I find my 
 self returning to certain opinions and 
 prejudices of my girlhood, that I had 
 long forgotten. Time, after all, has not 
 obliterated them, nor have I walked 
 away from them. It is rather as though 
 I had gone in a circle, and as I come 
 to the completion of it I find my old 
 thoughts and opinions, changed and 
 grown older, waiting for me. 
 
 With my marriage begins the part 
 of my life that seems real to me, it 
 is as if I had dreamed all that went be 
 fore. I loved the time when my chil 
 dren were little, and I have often wished 
 that I could put them and myself back 
 in the nursery again. I pity the women 
 whose children come too late for them 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 all to be in some sense children to 
 gether. But however young a mother 
 is, there is a great gap between her 
 and her babies. My little children were 
 of a different generation from me. And 
 for all our striving to understand, they 
 were babies and my husband and I 
 " grown people," though as I look back 
 we seem mere boy and girl. 
 
 We worried over our babies, there 
 were four of them, all in the nursery 
 at the same time, we sat up nights 
 gravely discussing their " tendencies," 
 and their education only to find that 
 the very tendencies over which we 
 worried most they outgrew, and that 
 when the time for education began in 
 earnest, all the conditions had changed 
 and new methods had been evolved. 
 
 It will always be this way, mothers 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and fathers will always sit up late nights, 
 as we did, discussing the " futures" of 
 their little two-year-old sons. 
 
 We tried so hard to do right ; we 
 thought back through the years and 
 said: 
 
 " I felt this and this when I was little. 
 I thought this way and this such and 
 such things frightened me. My father 
 seemed unjust when he punished me 
 for this offense ; my mother made such 
 and such mistakes. I will not make 
 these mistakes with my children." 
 
 And so, thinking to avoid all the 
 mistakes of our own parents, we made, 
 all unknowing, fresh mistakes of our 
 own. 
 
 When I was little, for instance, I was 
 very much afraid of the dark; so much 
 so that the fears of my childhood 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 haunted my whole life, an unlighted 
 staircase has terrors for me even to 
 this day. And I made up my mind that 
 no child of mine should suffer from 
 fear of darkness as I did. So my first 
 child had a light in his room. He was 
 always naughty about going to bed, 
 and he grew to be a big boy before I 
 found out that this was because the 
 gray twilight of the room was horrible 
 to him, and that he was very much 
 afraid of the uncertain shapes of the 
 furniture he saw in the dim light of 
 the lamp, though not at all afraid of 
 the dark. It is with such well-inten 
 tioned blunders that one brings up one s 
 children. 
 
 Grandmothers know that this is so, 
 and for that reason all the various 
 
 "systems" seem like foolish words to 
 5 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP 
 
 them. They have learned that there 
 will be mistakes made where there are 
 parents and children, yes, and that 
 there will be cruelties and injustices, 
 and that the only way to deal with very 
 little children is to love them very 
 much and let them feel this love. 
 
 The time my children took in growing 
 up seems to me phenomenally short; one 
 day they were babies and the next they 
 were young people to be reckoned with, 
 having wills and personalities of their 
 own. Other mothers tell me that their 
 children grew up as quickly, but this I 
 have hard work to believe. 
 
 When my oldest son was nearly a 
 man and the others crowding on his 
 heels, my dear husband died, and my son 
 grew up overnight, and in the next few 
 years years that were very full ones, 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 for all their sadness my other chil 
 dren stole a march on me and grew up 
 too; almost, I might say, behind my 
 back. While I was taking on myself 
 the new responsibilities of my so altered 
 life, and while the world seemed yet 
 very empty of companionship, I found 
 that my children were becoming my 
 comrades, and so I entered on the third 
 quarter of my life. 
 
 My boys and girls all at once be 
 longed to my generation ; we had com 
 mon interests, common tastes and 
 amusements for all practical purposes 
 we were the same age. It was at this time 
 that the warning voice sounded in my 
 ear, but I seemed to myself almost as 
 young as my children, so no wonder I 
 did n t recognize it as the voice of age 
 
 calling to me. It is a very pleasant time 
 7 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 when one is still on the great stage of 
 life, playing one s small part shoulder to 
 shoulder with one s children ; shoulder 
 to shoulder, too, with people a score of 
 years one s senior. This is the golden 
 moment when time holds its breath for 
 a while and one imagines that, however 
 old one may get, one will forever stay 
 in spirit at the same smiling " middle 
 way." Age, considered at that time, 
 seems rather the result of some accident 
 or some weakness of will than the result 
 of living a great number of years in the 
 world. So for many years my children 
 and I did our work side by side, I help 
 ing and advising them, they aiding and 
 advising me in the common partnership 
 of our lives. 
 
 The fourth part of my life, my pre 
 sent life about which I am going to 
 8 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 write, began when again I became of a 
 different generation from my children 
 with the difference that they now 
 are the strong, I the weak ; that they 
 treasure me and care for me, worry 
 over me and weep over me, a spry 
 old lady, and, I am afraid, sometimes 
 a defiant old lady, impatient of the rules 
 which they lay down for me, as once 
 they were of the rules that I made for 
 them. 
 
 How did this come about? When 
 did it happen ? 
 
 There was a time when I was more 
 of a comrade than a mother to my 
 daughters ; when I was the adviser of 
 my sons. Now I am not. I do not know 
 when the change came, nor do they, if 
 indeed they realize it at all. There was 
 
 a time when I was of their generation, 
 9 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 now I am not. I cannot put my finger 
 on the time when old age finally claimed 
 me. But there came a moment when 
 my boys were more thoughtful of me, 
 when they did n t come to me any more 
 with their perplexities, not because I 
 had what is called " failed," but because 
 they felt that the time had come when 
 I ought to be " spared " every possible 
 worry. So there is a conspiracy of si 
 lence against me in my household. " We 
 must n t worry mother " is the watch 
 word of my dear children, and the re 
 sult of their great care is that I am on 
 the outside of their lives. 
 
 Shadows come and go among them ; 
 they talk about them ; I feel the chill 
 of their trouble, but I m never told 
 what it s about. Before me they keep 
 
 cheerful ; when I come, the shadow 
 10 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 passes from their faces and they talk 
 with me about all the things that they 
 think will interest me. I move in a little 
 artificial, smiling world away from all 
 the big interests of life. If one of them 
 is sick away from home, I am not told 
 until it is all over ; if there is any crisis 
 among them, they do all they can to 
 keep me from hearing of it. But in the 
 end I always do know, for no one can 
 live in the shadow of any anxiety and 
 not be aware of it. 
 
 So the great silence enfolds me more 
 and more. I live more alone and soli 
 tary among those I love, groping in the 
 silence, watching the faces of my chil 
 dren to find what is passing in their 
 lives. I often think how sweet it would 
 have been if my husband had lived, and 
 we could have grown old together, 
 11 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 understanding and giving companion 
 ship to each other. 
 
 I can remember the very day when 
 I realized that age had claimed me at 
 last. There is a great difference between 
 being a thing and realizing it. A woman 
 may say a hundred times that she is 
 ugly ; she may be ugly ; but unless she 
 realizes that she is ugly, it will make 
 very little difference. It is the conscious 
 ness of our defects which undoes us, 
 and so with age. 
 
 This great readjustment began with 
 the most trivial of events. I happened 
 to see a little dust on the table and 
 around on the bric-a-brac it seems to 
 me that dusting is a lost art and I 
 was just wiping it off. I was enjoying 
 myself, for I belong to a generation 
 
 which was taught to work with its 
 12 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 hands and to delight in doing its work 
 nicely, when I heard Margaret s step 
 on the stairs ; she is my youngest 
 daughter, home on a visit. My first 
 impulse was to sit down and pretend 
 to be reading, but I resolved to bra 
 zen it out, after all, there is no rea 
 son why I shouldn t dust my own 
 bric-a-brac in my own home if I 
 choose. 
 
 She came into the parlor. 
 
 " What are you doing, darling ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " I am dusting the vases on the man 
 tel," I answered, and I tried to keep 
 any note of guilt from my voice. 
 
 "Why couldn t you have called 
 Annie?" she asked me, with tender 
 reproach. 
 
 " I like to stir around myself some- 
 13 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 times," I said, and for the life of me 
 I couldn t help being a little defiant. 
 
 "Well, then, why couldn t you let 
 me do it ? You might have called me," 
 she went on in the same tone. 
 
 "I told you I like to do it." 
 
 "It isn t good for you to stand on 
 your feet so much. Give me that dus 
 ter, mother. You ll tire yourself all 
 out." 
 
 " I get tired sitting" I broke out. 
 
 " I always have said that you ought 
 to take more exercise in the open air." 
 By this time she had taken away my 
 duster. "Why don t you go out and 
 take a little walk? Come I 11 go with 
 you." 
 
 Presently she had finished dusting, 
 but I saw ever so many little places that 
 
 I should have to wipe up later on, fur* 
 14 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 lively. I should have enjoyed finishing 
 that dusting myself. 
 
 "I ll run up and get your things," 
 said Margaret. 
 
 Now, I cannot abide having any one 
 trifle with my bureau drawers, and it 
 is n t because I m old enough to have 
 middle-aged sons and daughters, either. 
 Ever since I can remember, I have put 
 my things away myself. I keep my 
 bonnets in the little drawers and my 
 gloves and veils my everyday ones, 
 that is beside them ; and I know that 
 I shall never be able to find anything 
 again once Margaret has been among 
 them. Besides that, I do not like going 
 to walk. Walking aimlessly for exer 
 cise has always seemed most futile to 
 me; a feeble stroll that has no objec 
 tive point, not even the post office, an- 
 15 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 noys me more than any other way of 
 spending my time. I have never walked 
 except when I had something to walk 
 for, and I don t intend to begin at my 
 time of life. 
 
 "I don t think I ll go to walk, dear. 
 I m going out this afternoon " 
 
 Now, though I said this indifferently 
 enough, in a tone which didn t invite 
 discussion, yet I braced myself in 
 wardly; I knew what was coming. 
 
 " Oh, mother darling," my daughter 
 cried. " You re not going to that lec 
 ture, with your cold, in that drafty 
 hall ! And you always catch more cold 
 in a crowd! You won t go, will you? " 
 
 " Well, well "I temporized. 
 
 " You won t go promise." 
 
 Then the door-bell rang, and I made 
 
 my escape to my own room and locked 
 16 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 my door after me. I knew well enough 
 what would happen, how Margaret 
 would tell the others at dinner that I 
 was going out, and how they would 
 protest. And I made up my mind, as I 
 often have before, that since I am old 
 enough to know what is best for me, I 
 would go to that lecture, let them talk 
 as they might; so I got ready for the 
 battle, resolving for the hundredth 
 time that I would not be run by my 
 children. 
 
 As I sat in my room plotting yes, 
 plotting how I should outwit my 
 daughter, it came over me what a 
 funny thing it was that I should be 
 contriving to get my own way, for 
 all the world like a naughty, elderly 
 child, while my daughter was worry 
 ing about my headstrong ways as if 
 17 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 she were my mother instead of my be 
 ing hers. 
 
 How increasingly often I hear as the 
 years go on, not only from my own 
 children, but from other people whose 
 mothers are already old : " Mother will 
 not take care of herself ! " And then 
 follow fearsome stories of mother s 
 latest escapade, just as one tells how 
 naughty Johnnie is getting and how 
 Susie kicks her bedclothes off, stories 
 of how mother made a raid on the attic 
 and cleaned it almost single-handed 
 when all the family were away; stories 
 of clandestine descents into the perilous 
 depths of the cellar; hair-raising tales 
 of how mother was found on a step- 
 ladder hanging a window curtain ; 
 how mother insisted on putting down 
 
 the preserves and pickles, rows and 
 
 18 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 rows and rows of shining glasses of 
 them, herself, and how tired she was 
 afterwards, as if putting down the pre 
 serves tired only women who were past 
 middle age. And a certain indignation 
 rose within me as I remembered that 
 I can visit my own attic and my own 
 cellar only by stealth or with a devoted 
 and tyrannical child of mine standing 
 over me to see that I don t " overdo." 
 For the motto of all devoted sons and 
 daughters is: "Nag mother to death, 
 if necessary, but don t let her overdo." 
 Well, what if I should overdo ? Be 
 fore one is old, one is allowed to shorten 
 one s life unchecked; one may have 
 orgies of work undisturbed. And I, for 
 one, would far rather shorten my life 
 by overdoing than have it lengthened 
 
 out by a series of mournful, inactive 
 19 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 years. Again I said I would not be run 
 by my children. And as I got to this 
 point in my meditation I heard my son 
 Dudley coming up the stairs. I knew 
 he would come to see me, so I unlocked 
 my door. 
 
 I had said that I would not be run 
 by my children. Now see to what depths 
 constant nagging reduces a naturally 
 straightforward woman. I know that 
 Dudley watches me very closely, and I 
 often wish he would sometimes ignore 
 my moods as I do his; but this time I 
 was ready for him, pulling a long face 
 when he came in. 
 
 He said atonce I knew he would: 
 
 "You look blue, old girl." 
 
 " I never," I burst out, " can do the 
 least thing without you children inter 
 fering. I can t read all the time, you 
 20 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 know; but whenever I propose to do 
 anything, I meet with such opposition 
 that for the sake of peace I give up at 
 
 once." 
 
 I spoke more warmly than I felt as 
 far as this particular instance was con 
 cerned, for I was fighting for a princi 
 ple. 
 
 " Who s been bothering you? " Dud 
 ley demanded. 
 
 "It isn t < bothered I ve been," I 
 remonstrated. "It s that you children 
 are needlessly anxious about me. It s 
 far better for me to go out now and 
 then than to sit in the house from morn 
 ing till night. And what s more," I 
 added determinedly, "I am going to 
 the lecture this afternoon no matter 
 what Margaret or any one else says!" 
 
 Dudley laughed. 
 21 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " There, there," he said, patting my 
 hand. "You shall go; no one is going 
 to oppose you. You 11 go if I have to 
 take you there in a carriage myself." 
 
 So I knew I had won the day, foi 
 in our family Dudley is the important 
 member. But I made up my mind, just 
 the same, that I would go on my own 
 two feet to that lecture, for there was 
 no need at all of a carriage. And I did 
 go, alone and walking, though I slipped 
 out of the front door so quietly that 
 it was hardly dignified, " sneaked," 
 was what Margaret called it. 
 
 As Dudley went down the hall, I 
 thought how a similar warfare is being 
 carried on all over this country to-day, 
 wherever there are elderly mothers and 
 middle-aged sons and daughters, the 
 
 children trying to dominate their par- 
 22 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ents with the end in view of making 
 them take abnormal care of their health, 
 and the older people fighting ever more 
 feebly and petulantly for their lost in 
 dependence. Not only struggling to 
 have their own way, not only chafing 
 at the leading-strings in which their 
 watchful, devoted children would keep 
 them, but fighting, too, for the little 
 glimmer of youth that is yet left them. 
 For all this care by one s children 
 means but one thing, and that is 
 age. While you slept, old age came 
 upon you. You count the number of 
 your years by the way your daughter 
 watches your steps, and you see your 
 infirmities in your son s anxious eyes; 
 and the reason of all this struggle 
 why our own attics and cellars are for 
 bidden ground to us ; why our daugh- 
 23 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ters take our dusters from us and ten 
 derly nag us is that they are valiantly, 
 if tactlessly, striving to delay by their 
 care the hour which they know must 
 come, while we try to ignore its ap 
 proach. 
 
 We like to kill the days, which some 
 times crawl past us so slowly, with 
 an illusion of activity, and we do not 
 like to be reminded day by day, hour 
 by hour, that we are old, that there 
 is no work we need do, no " ought " 
 calling us any more; that our work 
 in the world is being done by other 
 people and our long vacation has al 
 ready begun. 
 
 As I sat alone that evening and so 
 berly went over the events of the day, 
 I clearly realized the meaning of Mar 
 garet s taking away my duster. I real- 
 24 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ized that there was no work in the 
 world that I ought to do but take care 
 of myself. I realized that I was old, 
 and from that day, though I often for 
 get it, the world has looked a little dif 
 ferent to me; my point of view has, in 
 some subtle way, shifted. It was on 
 that day that I sat down to think how 
 it was that I had come to be old and 
 what the invisible milestones were that 
 I had passed along the way. 
 
 The first time age touched me it was 
 with so light a finger that I did not rec 
 ognize the touch ; I did n t know what 
 had happened. Indeed, the touch of age 
 at first irritated me; then I laughed at 
 it, and finally I became a little bewildered, 
 realizing confusedly that a new ele 
 ment had come into my life to stay. But 
 
 I did not know that it was the shadow 
 25 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of age which was upon me, that it was 
 always there, invisible, quiet, persistent, 
 and, patient as death, waiting to claim 
 me. 
 
 This first touch of age comes when 
 our children begin to dictate to us. 
 
 The other day I saw the youth of a 
 woman begin to wither under my very 
 eyes. She did n t know what was hap 
 pening, but I knew what shadow was 
 over her. To me she seems young, for I 
 have seen her grow up, and though she 
 has big daughters, I never thought of her 
 as approaching middle age until the last 
 time she and the girls came to see me. 
 
 Edith is a big, handsome, buoyant 
 woman, but there was a subdued air 
 about her for which I could n t account 
 until her eldest daughter said sweetly, 
 
 but with decision : 
 26 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 " Mother is n t looking well ; she ought 
 to have some sea air." 
 
 And Edith replied with the note of 
 helpless irritation that I have come to 
 know so well : 
 
 "I have told the children so often 
 that I dislike leaving my comfortable 
 home in the summer." 
 
 Then I knew why Edith seemed 
 changed : her children had begun to 
 run her. 
 
 So the finger of age touches all of us 
 in much the same fashion. The warn 
 ing may not always come through some 
 dear child, though with mothers it is 
 oftenest in that way ; but the voice of 
 the valiant new generation speaks in 
 one way or another to every man and 
 woman, and from the moment you have 
 
 heard that voice you have set your face 
 27 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 old-agewards, though twenty years or 
 more may pass before you are really 
 old. The strong new generation, eager 
 and clamorous, is at your heels ready 
 to take your place, anxious to perform 
 your tasks. Already your children are 
 altering the world that you know ; 
 already they are meditating the changes 
 that they will make when the reins of 
 power fall into their hands ; and one 
 day you will wake up in a new world, 
 an unhomelike place to which you must 
 adjust yourself as a baby must adjust 
 himself to his surroundings, but with 
 the difference that every day the baby 
 makes progress, whereas every day you 
 will find the new conditions harder to 
 understand, as I have, and as your 
 mother has. 
 
 After my husband s death I was very 
 28 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 anxious to have my own mother make 
 her home with me, and at the time I 
 could n t understand why she would n t. 
 Now I know. She lived instead in a little 
 house in the town where she had spent 
 her life, and for all companionship she 
 had a " girl " nearly as old as herself. 
 We used to worry about her a great 
 deal, about her loneliness, her lack of 
 care of herself, all the things that my 
 children worry about now ; but she 
 met all our pleading to live with us 
 with the baffling smile, and the "Well, 
 well, we 11 see," that she had used with 
 us when we were little children. 
 
 One time I accompanied her home 
 after a visit she had made us, in spite 
 of her protests that it was ridiculous 
 for me to do so. It had stormed and the 
 
 roads were bad, and I was afraid to let 
 29 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 her travel alone. She strode ahead of 
 me, straight as a pine tree, up the brick 
 path which led to her house, and opened 
 the front door. The gesture of welcome 
 she gave her lonely little home, and the 
 long breath she drew, as of relief, I 
 didn t then understand, though I al 
 ways remembered them. I understand 
 now. She had come back to herself, to 
 her own life, to her memories. Here she 
 could think her own thoughts and lead 
 her life as she wished. She could even 
 sit in a draft without an affection 
 ately officious child following her up 
 with a shawl, and her little home, lonely 
 as it was, was less lonely than the strange 
 world we lived in. I have often taken 
 the duster from my mother s hands as 
 Margaret did from mine the other morn 
 ing. And I suppose the same little 
 30 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 drama will be enacted in every family 
 until the end of time by mothers and 
 daughters. 
 
CHAPTBK II 
 
 MY MOTHER S HOUSE 
 
 As my years crowd upon me, I read 
 the meaning of certain things in the 
 past that as a young woman I never 
 understood, for there is nothing more 
 variable than our past. Young people 
 regard the happenings of yesterday as 
 a fixed quantity, but the past is just 
 as insecure as the future, for all events 
 have meaning and gather value only 
 according to the personality they visit. 
 This being so, as time changes, the tra 
 gedy of yesterday softens and smiles at 
 one. The small and meaningless event, 
 in the light of those which follow it, 
 grows and grows until it overshadows 
 
 all. 
 
 32 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 The boundaries that fix life itself 
 birth and death are perhaps the only 
 events that keep their primary impor 
 tance with us as we age. Mysterious is 
 the past and strange and fortuitous. It 
 veils its face like the future. We can 
 not remember what we will ; we forget 
 the very things that we have loved and 
 felt and suffered. The memory of the 
 emotions passes from us, and it is as 
 if they had never been. Why should I 
 keep this trivial memory and discard 
 the other ? Who can tell me ? I know 
 that this and that, when I was a girl, 
 made my heart beat ; this I remember, 
 but not with my emotions. Why it beat 
 is now mysterious to me. 
 
 As I grow old I find myself in a 
 thousand looks and gestures of my 
 
 mother, the memories of which come 
 33 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 crowding to me out of the past. We 
 go down to the grave as egotists ; so 
 it is the mother of her later years 
 who now returns to me as I tread over 
 the path she trod. 
 
 Especially significant is her house, 
 the little place so liberally fenced in and 
 not thrown into the next place in the 
 modern and odious fashion. Up the side 
 of the brick path were posy beds, for 
 that is the true name for such a garden, 
 and posy beds there were in front 
 of the house, and behind grew other 
 flowers. These my mother tended her 
 self; the lawn was cared for by a 
 gardener. This man was a great thorn 
 in the side of all of us who visited her. 
 He spent his days gossiping cheerily 
 over the fence, telling the neighbors de 
 tails like the difference between the ther- 
 34 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 mometer in the shade and in the sun. 
 He would communicate to them at what 
 hour he had arisen that morning and how 
 his hens were laying. His cheerful and 
 ceaseless babble went on whenever he 
 found an ear to receive it. This old man 
 annoyed us, as I said. He was a kindly 
 soul, and we had no objection to him as 
 an individual, but his prattle bored us, 
 and we felt that he should work for the 
 stipend he received for mo wing the lawn 
 and raking up the leaves. This feeling 
 our mother did not share ; she was con 
 tented to let him dawdle through the 
 hours of the day if he chose, so that 
 some time or other the lawn was cut; 
 and as she pottered about her flowers, 
 gloves on her hands and a wide shade 
 hat on her head for she was of the 
 
 generation whose gentlewomen were 
 35 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 taught to be careful of their complex 
 ion and their hands, and thought it un 
 becoming in a delicate female to get 
 blowzy with sunburn and blackened 
 with tan she would stop and talk with 
 him. 
 
 We would point out to her that she 
 was encouraging him in his idle habits, 
 and were always ready at a moment s 
 notice to furnish her with a strong 
 likely boy of eighteen in place of this 
 doddering and garrulous individual. I 
 can remember conversations like this : 
 
 "Mother, I ve heard that Widow 
 Johnson s boy wants to work " 
 
 " Widow Johnson s boy ! That weedy 
 bean-pole all legs ! " 
 
 " He s eighteen " 
 
 "I know your eighteen-year-olds," 
 
 my mother would cry. " They stop work- 
 36 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ing the moment your back is turned. 
 I like my man ; I can depend on 
 him." 
 
 " Yes," we would reply bitterly, " you 
 can depend on him to do nothing. Be 
 sides, you 11 be helping the boy s mo 
 ther." 
 
 We knew that a practice of my 
 mother s was to help along solitary 
 women less fortunately placed than she 
 had been. 
 
 But to this suggestion she would re 
 ply with a masterful definiteness : 
 
 " I m not an eleemosynary institution, 
 my dear." 
 
 There was no arguing with her ; 
 there was no making her see that that 
 was precisely what she was. There 
 was no use offering her men in the 
 
 prime of life to mow her lawn any 
 37 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 more than there was in offering her 
 what she called " tittering and hooting 
 boys." 
 
 She was just as bad about the bits 
 of carpentry that there were to be done 
 around the house. There was a cer 
 tain workman who came occasionally 
 on odd jobs and whom we tried to have 
 her get rid of, but for whom, after all, 
 we had a sneaking fondness. 
 
 I can remember this old man well. 
 He seemed no thicker than a piece of 
 paper and gave the impression of some 
 odd ghost, so bent-over was he, so pale, 
 a strange, tanned pallor, framed in 
 by tenuous hair and sparse, white 
 whiskers. He moved brokenly and 
 feebly, and yet clung with the tenacity 
 of a fly to the side of a roof. He liked 
 
 shingling, he said ; it kept him young. 
 
 38 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 This I doubt, nor have I ever yet tried 
 it for the disease of age. 
 
 My mother claimed he was a good 
 carpenter. That may have been ; at any 
 rate, all the carpentering that was done, 
 was done by him, from shingling to pot 
 tering over a broken piazza rail. What 
 especially irritated us about him was 
 that his memory had departed from him. 
 It was impossible for him to remember 
 for ten consecutive minutes where to 
 find his tools. One could find him at any 
 unexpected place, always, he said, look 
 ing for the nails or the screwdriver or 
 the hammer. He strewed them about 
 him with as lavish a gesture as Millet s 
 Sower, so one might judge from the 
 length of time he spent looking for 
 them. He would wander from room to 
 
 room, peering with nearsighted eyes 
 39 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 into every corner ; and sometimes he 
 would forget which tool it was he had 
 lost, and would have to go back to find 
 out, and then begin the search all over 
 again. He never became impatient at 
 this, but continued his long wanderings 
 like some little New England " Wander 
 ing Jew, " in sorrow over the unnatural 
 perversity of his tools rather than in 
 any anger against them. 
 
 A third person my mother employed 
 of this same kind ; this one a painter. 
 He was elderly also ; garrulous, but in 
 a different way from the childlike prat 
 tle of the gardener. 
 
 No, he couldn t tell how much a 
 thing would cost. Perhaps it would cost 
 so much, and perhaps so much; he 
 could n t tell until he got through. No, 
 
 he could n t tell you how long it would 
 40 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 take him, perhaps a day, perhaps 
 longer ; he did n t know. When would 
 he come? He didn t know; maybe 
 to-morrow, maybe next day, he 
 could n t tell. 
 
 "But," my mother would persist, 
 " we ve got to have that kitchen floor 
 painted and we ve got to know when 
 you re coming, Mr. Bunner." 
 
 " "Well, now, Mis Paine, I can t tell 
 you. Now, I 11 tell you how it is; I m 
 waitin now for some paint to paint 
 Malcolm s house, an when I get that 
 paint, I 11 paint his house, an when I 
 get that done, I 11 do your kitchen." 
 
 " But while you re waiting," my 
 mother would urge. 
 
 And you can imagine us fairly tramp 
 ing up and down with rage, wishing to 
 
 poke forth from the doors the old piker. 
 41 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Aud thus it would go on, and after 
 spending more or less of kindliness on 
 him, my mother would at last persuade 
 the old man to come the next day. 
 
 As I look back on it, it seems as if 
 always one or the other of these feck 
 less elderly workmen was engaged in 
 doing some odd job or other around my 
 mother s place, and I think this was very 
 likely true. I know now why she did it; 
 it gave her that feeling with which we 
 older people like to deceive ourselves, 
 and succeed according to the clear 
 ness of our mental capacity, the illu 
 sion of activity, of really accomplishing 
 something ; and my mother accomplished 
 this : that she kept up her house spick 
 and span to her last moment. I know 
 now, too, why she had these elderly 
 
 people about her, and why she couldn t 
 42 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 abide the smart, modern methods of 
 younger and more efficient people. 
 Not only had they worked for her for 
 years and she had a loyalty towards her 
 own generation, but I think she had 
 some deeper sympathy and liking for 
 their failing powers. Possibly she saw 
 her own mirrored in theirs ; perhaps she 
 remembered when the old carpenter 
 was as spry as a kitten and when he 
 never so much as mislaid a hook-eye. 
 
 They were old and she was old, but 
 they were older than she, and I think 
 that the contrast between them gave 
 her a sense of youthful power. I have 
 seen an aged mother be almost a foun 
 tain of youth. There lives here an old 
 woman who is upwards of ninety, and 
 with her live her unmarried daughters, 
 
 women well along in their sixties. 
 43 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 The old lady still calls her daughters 
 "the girls," and orders them about 
 smartly. They are all of the old school 
 and they obey her very well, but in turn 
 they tyrannize over her, look after her; 
 " do for her," as we have it here. One 
 can never drop in on them without 
 their having a story to tell about some 
 new rash deed of " mother s "; and so 
 they are young in spirit, having a work 
 to do in the world; some one to run, 
 and no chit of a younger generation to 
 run them. Another reason for their 
 youthfulness is that the house has not 
 had so much as a new matchsafe for 
 twenty years : they yet have about them 
 things all of their own choosing; they 
 have not had to part with the familiar 
 friends of their youth. 
 
 My mother s house was like this. 
 44 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 "While she was particular about repairs, 
 new things she would not buy. With 
 in -doors, combined with an austere 
 order, there was a certain dilapidation 
 of armchairs due to over-use; the lamp 
 was old ; everything about her had been 
 used for years, and the presents which 
 we made her stuck out like so many 
 sore thumbs, I am sure that many 
 of them disappeared into cupboards 
 and drawers when we took our depar 
 ture. 
 
 And when we broke up our larger 
 house in which we lived, and she and 
 father came to live in this little one, 
 I remember she gave us with lavish 
 hand what seemed to us the pick of the 
 furniture, and kept for herself those 
 things that belonged to her earlier 
 years. 
 
 45 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Have you ever noticed when it is 
 that people have their houses " done 
 over " ? I have. It usually occurs soon 
 after the daughters have been "out" 
 a while, and have had time to develop 
 a taste of their own. Then the moment 
 comes when the furniture is rearranged, 
 new touches are added, old-fashioned 
 things sent away to the attic for a long 
 rest, and the house passes from the 
 older generation to the younger. The 
 altered aspect of the house shows that 
 the young people are beginning to take 
 possession of their own. Do you re 
 member when so many of the parlor 
 carpets throughout the land were done 
 away with and little slippery rugs put 
 in their places? and a wonder it is 
 that we did n t all break our necks slid 
 ing across the floor on them ! 
 46 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 I have an old friend who picks her 
 way gingerly across the shining, pol 
 ished floor, as much in fear for her poor 
 stiff bones as if she were walking on 
 ice. As she walks carefully from one 
 treacherous oasis of a rug to another 
 and deposits herself on a Chippendale 
 chair, I can but remember the time 
 when the room was full of billowy, 
 upholstered chairs, faulty in line, per 
 haps, but holding out ample, inviting 
 arms to you. And as she perches her 
 self on the uncompromising colonial 
 furniture, I know that she regrets her 
 comfortable old chairs, though she 
 bravely pretends she thinks the new 
 furniture a great improvement. 
 
 Here is another of the milestones of 
 age; we pretend as hard as we can that 
 
 we like many things we don t like, that 
 47 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 we may not seem old-fashioned to our 
 dear ones. We do what we can to keep 
 pace with them until our old legs are 
 weary with running; but our children, 
 do the best we may, are far in advance 
 of us. We make concession after con 
 cession of our own preferences, even 
 to giving up the things that lived with 
 us when we were young and which 
 grew old with us and old-fashioned 
 even as we did. To please our children 
 we treacherously discard them, pre 
 tending we think them, in their old- 
 fashioned comfort, as hideous as do 
 our young people. My friend points 
 out the purity of design of the new 
 furniture, but she has had one of the 
 old parlor chairs done over and put in 
 her own bedroom. She sits there a good 
 deal. I have noticed that older women 
 48 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 work and read much in their own 
 rooms, and I sometimes wonder if it 
 is n t because the rest of the house has 
 become strange and unhomelike. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CONVENTIONS OF AGE 
 
 I CAN remember when I was a young 
 woman how many of my mother s foi 
 bles fretted me, for I was like the rest. 
 I had n t reasoned it out any more than 
 most people do, but I held some immu 
 table opinions about the conduct of age. 
 If I had my life to live over again, I 
 should know better. I should cherish 
 each of my mother s restless days, be 
 cause I would know that her very rest 
 lessness and occasional discontent were 
 the signs that life was keen within her, 
 and that I myself had made her rest 
 less, because as a too zealous daughter 
 I had in a measure, together with Time, 
 
 taken from her some of the occupations 
 50 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 that still by right belonged to her. I 
 would let her have her way on all the 
 minor points of dress and occupation. 
 I would not criticize the old workmen 
 she chose ; and, above all, I would not 
 try to impose on her any of my ideas 
 of how an older woman should act. 
 For young people have hard-and-fast 
 notions concerning older women s ac 
 tions. When we depart from them, 
 they make a personal grievance of it. 
 
 I do not think I am exaggerating 
 when I say that there is no class of 
 society so bound down by convention, 
 and for no good reason, as are the old 
 est of all. A young and pretty woman 
 must, of course, walk carefully along 
 life s paths; she must take care to 
 avoid even the appearance of evil. As 
 
 she grows older, a suitable amount of 
 51 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 convention in the mother of a family is 
 a wholesome balance. But when a wo 
 man grows old, when she has climbed 
 the ladder of years beyond the point 
 where scandal could touch her, one 
 would think that she might lay aside 
 minor conventions of life; that at last 
 she might do what she pleased, only 
 limited by her own failing strength. 
 There are so few things, after all, left 
 for us to do, so few that we have the 
 heart left for, or the wish for now, that 
 it would seem only right that we should 
 follow our caprice in the small matters 
 that still belong to us. 
 
 I recently heard a young woman my 
 daughter s age complain somewhat af 
 ter this fashion : 
 
 " There are no more real grandmo 
 thers left in the world ! I don t know 
 52 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 what the nowadays children are going to 
 do. How much my dear old grandmo 
 ther meant to me ! As far back as lean re 
 member, her sweet white head, crowned 
 with its snow-white cap, was always at 
 her favorite window in summer, and 
 in winter she sat beside the open fire 
 with her feet upon a little hassock, like 
 Whistler s mother. We children always 
 knew where to find grandma. She was 
 always so glad when we came. I can 
 see yet the welcome in her eyes when 
 we would run in on her. She would in 
 vent little games for us and tell us lit 
 tle stories as long as we would stay. 
 The lovely part of it was that she was 
 always there. No matter if mother was 
 out, or any one else, we could be sure 
 of finding grandma ready to hear all 
 
 about our little joys and troubles." 
 53 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 During this little recital, which, of 
 course, was not a long peroration, but 
 was given to us in the broken phrases 
 of a conversation, I had a very vivid pic 
 ture of this old lady, probably only a 
 few years older than myself, who was 
 " always there." What infirmity, I won 
 dered, made her be there all the time? 
 When an older woman is "always 
 there," depend upon it, there is some 
 deeper reason and a sadder one than that 
 she was waiting for her little grand 
 children. No one knows this better than 
 I myself, for I, too, am " there," for 
 one reason or another, more than I 
 wish to be. Oh, I knew very well how 
 eagerly she waited for those little grand 
 children of hers, and how the lonely, 
 gray, spacious hours brightened up in 
 the flicker of their laughter. I knew, 
 54 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 too, as they got over being little babies, 
 how brief their sweet, tumultuous visits 
 must have been. It is only very little 
 children who spend much time in their 
 grandmother s skirts. For a long time 
 past I have been conscious that Betty 
 only stays with me when she is kept in 
 or has nothing better to do. Once a 
 child has grown into liberty, you may 
 be sure it will not spend overlong 
 spaces of time with its grandparents, 
 unless they, too, are active enough to 
 be in the field, like an old English 
 friend of mine who, at seventy-three, 
 with undimmed enthusiasm, is teaching 
 his grandchildren to ride and shoot and 
 whip a trout stream. You may depend 
 upon it that they idolize him, not because 
 he is "there" all the time, but because 
 he can do all these things better than 
 55 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 they can, and is, besides, a living spring 
 of fishing-tackle, rods, and other sport 
 ing goods. 
 
 But this was not all my friend had to 
 say. After her picture of her own poor 
 grandmother, she took up the first part 
 of her argument. 
 
 " Nowadays," said she, " I look around 
 in vain for sweet old ladies like my 
 grandmother. There do not seem to l)e 
 any old ladies any more; they seem to 
 have gone out of fashion along with 
 the dear, pretty caps they used to wear, 
 and that they looked so sweet in. Now 
 adays older women dress just like their 
 daughters. Instead of ever being where 
 their grandchildren can find them, they 
 are off, if you please, at clubs or play 
 ing cards or even taking a jaunt in a 
 motor-car ! " 
 
 56 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 She said this, mind you, under my 
 very nose, and I did n t know whether 
 I was vaguely pleased with the subtle 
 flattery that she ignored the fact that I 
 was a very case in point of her recal 
 citrant new-fangled grandmother, or 
 whether to feel a little vexed with her 
 for being so obtuse. For a moment I 
 entertained the idea of allowing myself 
 the luxury of playing at being her age, 
 and then I felt I had better come out 
 flat-footed, and say, " Well, Eleanor, I 
 suppose you think I had better wear a 
 cap and give up the whist club"; but 
 I knew she would answer, with a look 
 of na ive wonder in her soft brown eyes, 
 " Why, auntie, you re not old ! " So all 
 I said was, " I suppose, my dear, the 
 conditions of life are easier and the 
 doctors are better, so nowadays many 
 57 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 older people manage to keep their in 
 firmities at bay a little longer." 
 
 I think that back of Eleanor s ideal 
 of a grandmother there lay a good deal 
 of unconscious selfishness. An elderly 
 mother who sits contentedly by the fire 
 all day is a far smaller responsibility 
 than a mother that one can never put a 
 hand on, and who, at a moment s notice, 
 goes off on perilous expeditions. 
 
 Everything Eleanor had said about 
 her grandmother had ruffled me more 
 than it should, so after I got over my 
 impatience, I asked myself why I had 
 been so annoyed, after all. I found the 
 answer soon enough. In lamenting that 
 there were no grandmothers left like 
 hers, Eleanor had clearly defined the 
 position that the average person takes 
 
 toward older women. 
 58 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 Each generation permits a different 
 type of young girl, but the older wo 
 man must not change; her outline is 
 fixed and immovable. She must be like 
 Eleanor s grandmother, " always there," 
 waiting, waiting, with a smiling face 
 through the long, quiet, empty hours, 
 for her grandchildren to come home. 
 
 I read a clever poem the other day, 
 the refrain of which was, " I m looking 
 forward to old age." 
 
 "Then," said the young writer, "at 
 last I can be perfectly comfortable. I 
 can lay aside the minor conventions 
 along with my tight shoes and tight 
 corsets. I can at last do as I please. 
 I m looking forward to old age." 
 
 When this young woman arrives at 
 the Land of Old Age, though, indeed, 
 
 she may, it is true, lay aside shoes that 
 59 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 are too small and clothes that are too 
 tight, she will, on the other hand, find 
 a whole new set of rules and regulations 
 to live by, and regulations that are not 
 self-imposed, but imposed by custom 
 and enforced by the younger genera 
 tion. There she will find waiting for 
 her an ideal of what she should be her 
 self, the ideal which was attained by 
 Eleanor s poor grandmother; a grace 
 ful, shadowy person, sitting, her feet 
 on a hassock, like Whistler s mother; 
 some one who has none of the impulses 
 of youth, which, in a grandmother, the 
 younger generation finds so disconcert 
 ing. Even the costume of this ideal is 
 decided upon by our exacting young 
 people. She shall wear, our ideal grand 
 mother, soft black or gray draperies, a 
 
 piece of beautiful old lace at her neck, 
 60 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 or a white fichu of rare old-fashioned 
 workmanship crossed on her bosom. 
 Caps are no longer the fashion, but 
 our custom-ridden children regret them. 
 For myself, should I live to be ninety, 
 I hope I shall fall short of this ideal in 
 all respects. I do not wish to become a 
 mere ornamental nonentity about whom 
 people shall say, " "What a sweet old 
 lady ! " I hope that I shall keep my 
 family alert over my misdeeds until my 
 end, for then I shall be sure that I shall 
 not have slipped altogether among the 
 shadows before I go. 
 i Think what the ideal of old age that 
 seems so beautiful implies ; it means that 
 the body has so lost its resiliency that 
 the wholesome desire for action has 
 passed, that one s own life and actions 
 
 have ceased to have an interest for one, 
 61 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and that instead of having to snatch time 
 to play with one s grandchildren, one 
 has nothing to do but wait, nothing in 
 the world to do but " be there." It is too 
 great a price to pay for conforming to 
 an ideal whose greatest value, after all, 
 lies in a certain picturesqueness. I do 
 not think, either, that any middle-aged 
 woman would consciously choose to 
 have her own mother one of these ideal 
 grandmothers, although there are ways 
 in which each one of our daughters 
 would be glad to have us conform to an 
 ideal of elderly conduct a little more 
 closely. 
 
 There are daughters who, like my 
 own, limit the field of their mothers 
 activities, believing firmly that they are 
 doing so in the interest of their mothers 
 
 health. There are a great many other 
 62 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 middle-aged women whom I see about 
 me who constantly curtail their mothers 
 personal liberties, because these old 
 ladies wish to do things which, if you 
 please, shock the fastidious daughters 
 in what they think is fitting for the 
 aged. These young women know so 
 definitely what an older woman may 
 and may not say and do and wear! 
 
 " Mediaeval " is a word I hear often 
 nowadays on the lips of the young peo 
 ple. So-and-So has " mediaeval" ideas 
 on the subject of divorce or what-not. 
 All older people are supposed to hold 
 " mediaeval " ideas, and when it turns 
 out that one of us happens to have read 
 and digested a new economic theory or 
 some new book of vital interest, it is al 
 ways an irritating moment to me when 
 
 a younger woman remarks, in a patron- 
 63 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 izing way, " Why, how Mrs. So-and-So 
 keeps up with the times ! " But there 
 is no reactionary older woman I know 
 who holds as " mediaeval " opinions as 
 those which the ordinary younger women 
 have about the older generation. The 
 broadest-minded women I know are as 
 tradition - bound as possible when it 
 comes to what we older women may do. 
 Many an older woman, for instance, 
 finds a style which especially suits her, 
 a style which does not conform to 
 the costume in which the poetical im 
 agination pictures the dwellers in the 
 Land of Old Age. I had an old friend 
 who happened to fancy, as accessories 
 to a costume in which to pass her de 
 clining years, a bustle and a certain 
 false front. Bustles went their way, 
 
 and a few people still clung to them; 
 64 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 then even the faithful gave them up, 
 but my friend still wore hers valiantly. 
 It suited her so to do, and why not? 
 Had n t she followed the fashions long 
 enough? Hadn t she earned her right 
 to wear what she chose? That was the 
 way she looked at it. She was a valiant, 
 high-spirited old lady, full of good- 
 tempered anecdotes about every one 
 you ever heard of, fond of all the 
 bright things of life, young people, 
 dance music, company, and bright 
 colors ; the last she wore unflinchingly. 
 So gayly indeed and gladly did she 
 walk up the road of time that she died, 
 advanced in years, without old age hav 
 ing seemingly laid a finger on her blithe 
 spirit. If the young people had a quiet 
 smile at the expense of her bustle, it 
 
 was a tender one. The false front which 
 65 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 she wore with great artlessness was an 
 ornament to her personality. None who 
 loved her, and they were many, would 
 have had her altered in any respect. 
 There was but one exception to this 
 her widowed daughter, who with her 
 little girls made her home with her 
 mother. The bustle and false front 
 caused her the keenest pain. I do not 
 believe my friend ever got herself ready 
 for a " party " without the daughter try 
 ing to decrease the size of that bustle. 
 She never gave up trying. I remember 
 waiting for my friend and hearing in 
 the hall above me the sounds of argu 
 ment, and at last from the stairs my 
 friend s voice : " For the hundredth 
 time, Emily, I will not go out looking 
 like a pancake ! I tell you I should n t 
 
 feel decent!" 
 
 66 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 She came into the room, her flowing 
 silk rustling and creaking, her bonnet 
 brave with colors, and I couldn t, as 
 I looked at her, understand how any 
 daughter, however hide-bound, could 
 have wished to alter a hem s breadth of 
 her high-hearted, courageous costume. 
 My friend loved every one to be happy 
 and contented around her, and I often 
 think how many small annoyances she 
 might have been spared had her daugh 
 ter not had such firm convictions con 
 cerning the conventional dress of age. 
 I am glad to relate, however, that my 
 old friend wore her bustle, her daugh 
 ter notwithstanding, almost to her dying 
 day. I hope they buried it with her, 
 she made a brave fight for it. She is to 
 me an inspiring memory. When my 
 
 children try oh, very gently to take 
 67 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 from me some little habit or some pe 
 culiarity of dress, I think of her and 
 smilingly hold on to my own, for I will 
 not encourage them in their stupid 
 and " mediasval " idea of the fitness 
 of things. I will not, at my time of 
 life, have my individuality pruned and 
 clipped. In the matter of dress there 
 are endless limitations for us older peo 
 ple. All the lighter colors are supposed 
 to be unsuitable for us ; and so for some 
 of us they are from an aesthetic point 
 of view, though I have known many a 
 middle-aged woman and many a pink- 
 cheeked, snowy-haired grandmother to 
 whom pale pink would have been every 
 bit as becoming as the pale lavender 
 which custom permits. 
 
 I know one sweet old lady who has 
 
 always loved pink as a favorite color. 
 
 68 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 She confessed to me that it was a cross 
 to her when she grew too old to wear it. 
 
 "Well, why don t you anyway?" I 
 asked her, knowing very well why. / 
 would not have the courage to blossom 
 out in so much as one daring pink rib 
 bon, but, "Why don t you?" said I. 
 
 " I do," she replied mysteriously, " I 
 do." 
 
 I looked at her simple black gown. 
 
 " Oh, not on the outside ! But," said 
 she, lowering her voice, " I always run 
 in plenty of pink ribbon in my things, 
 and I have pink ribbon garters ! " she 
 concluded triumphantly. 
 
 And only an older woman who has 
 been cut off by an arbitrary custom 
 from many of the pretty gay things of 
 life will understand what a comfort 
 those pink ribbon garters were to her. 
 69 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 One of my friends has already reached 
 the age of eighty without her interest 
 in life being in any degree abated, and, 
 what is far rarer, without her desire to 
 be up and doing being in any degree 
 diminished by age s infirmities. She has, 
 perhaps, a more transparent look than 
 she had some fifteen years ago, but she 
 is still as erect as a girl. Except for 
 looks, for her beautiful white hair and 
 her old-lady dresses, she happens to 
 be one who takes kindly to the wearing 
 of lace fichus, she is everything that 
 conventionally an older woman should 
 not be. You do not find her " there," 
 not she ; and not only is she not there, 
 but she does n t tell her daughters where 
 she is going. They are between Mar 
 garet s age and mine, and discuss 
 
 " Mother s " wild, headstrong ways in 
 70 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 my presence. She gives them a great 
 deal of trouble and anxiety, and it is n t 
 all by any means simple worry for fear 
 she may do herself some harm or over 
 tax her strength. She keeps a life of her 
 own. Since her daughters have in the 
 natural order of things assumed the 
 helm, she has interested herself in vari 
 ous intellectual pursuits; she attends 
 lectures not only here, but in the sur 
 rounding towns. She is valiant in the 
 field of missionary labor. As her daugh 
 ter sighs : " It seems to me we never 
 send out cards for anything that mother 
 does n t take that time for getting up 
 barrels for the Indians ! " You see, her 
 activities interfere with the family, and 
 they will neither let her go her way 
 unmolested nor will they accept her 
 
 activity without protest. She is, and 
 Tl 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 partly because of these arbitrary con 
 ventionalities, a great care to her daugh 
 ters. 
 
 One of them came in the other day 
 sighing: 
 
 " Well, I ve got to go with mother 
 to Elenwood to hear that man lecture 
 on < Labor Conditions to-day. I don t 
 see where I m to find time." 
 
 "Your mother couldn t go alone, I 
 suppose? " I asked tentatively. 
 
 " She could," replied this poor daugh 
 ter, "for she s to meet friends at the 
 other end, but it looks so bad for a wo 
 man of mother s age to go around the 
 country alone. As if her children cared 
 nothing for her ! " 
 
 It would be a great relief to them all 
 if this active old lady would stay at 
 
 home more. I am glad she does n t. My 
 
 72 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 high-spirited friend is one of those who 
 are helping to kill out the conventions 
 which are troublesome weeds in the 
 Land of Old Age. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE S MEDICINE 
 
 ANOTHER convention that shackles the 
 lives of most older women is the methods 
 which their grown children employ to 
 conserve their elders health. Each fam 
 ily has its own particular fetish as to 
 what "Mother" ought to do for her 
 health ; almost all older women who have 
 their children living with them have to 
 submit themselves to the hygienic fads 
 of their sons and daughters. In my own 
 case it is carriages ; they are the bane 
 of my life. I could keep an accurate re 
 cord of how years are crowding on me 
 by the way my children send me around 
 instead of letting me walk. When Mar 
 garet begins, " Colds are terribly preva- 
 74 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 lent at this time of year. Have you 
 heard, Dudley, that Mrs. Sears has got 
 pneumonia ? " then I know that she 
 wants me to drive to the reception or 
 wherever I am going. 
 
 To any one who has not passed from 
 middle age into the place where people 
 live who are already counted old, it 
 may seem a far cry between Mrs. Sears s 
 pneumonia and my having a carriage 
 on a sunny fall day, but those who are 
 living in that country where older peo 
 ple dwell will understand. To listen to 
 our children talk to us, you might think 
 that all we older people might live a 
 thousand years if we only did all the 
 tiresome, unpleasant things for our 
 health that our children want us to do, 
 and I suppose that I ought to be glad 
 that my Margaret has a mania for car- 
 75 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 riages. That is the word for it, a 
 mania. At the slightest excuse I am 
 driven in a jolting, germ-laden, livery- 
 stable hack to and from the reception, 
 concert, or lecture or church. This 
 procedure has saved me, according to 
 Margaret, all the diseases and ailments 
 of mankind except perhaps the bubonic 
 plague, and if that disease were preva 
 lent in our neighborhood, I dare say 
 Margaret would find means of proving 
 a carriage had saved me that. 
 
 Still, there are friends of mine whose 
 daughters have so much more unplea 
 sant ways of preserving their mothers 
 lives, that I should be glad that it is 
 nothing worse than hacks. 
 
 My friend, Mrs. Wellington, for in 
 stance, is taken out and walked and 
 
 walked about until she almost drops, 
 76 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 because her children believe that people 
 get old and stiff because they don t 
 walk enough. As if it was n t because 
 they are stiff in their joints that makes 
 them want to keep quiet ! 
 
 Mrs. Granger is dreadfully afraid she 
 will have to give up breakfast, which is 
 a meal she has always especially enjoyed, 
 just to keep peace. Every little turn of 
 any kind that she has, her children put 
 down to her liking for griddle - cakes 
 and syrup in the morning, since they 
 have gone in for the no-breakfast fad. 
 She says that every time she eats a good 
 comfortable breakfast, the family sit 
 around with faces as long as her arm, 
 and she is just on the point of giving 
 in, although she knows it will be bad 
 for her. 
 
 Mothers cannot bear to see their 
 
 77 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 children worried and distressed, and it 
 is here that we are ae much at our 
 children s mercy as we were when they 
 were little things at our knee and could 
 always get around us with tears well 
 ing to the eyes and quivering upper 
 
 UP. 
 
 When Margaret spoke last about a 
 carriage, she had a little worried ex 
 pression on her brow that was so like 
 Margaret when she was two years old 
 that I would go to church in a hay- 
 wagon to please her. I never could 
 bear to see that little puzzled, distressed 
 look on her face. So I submitted with 
 fairly good grace to the proposition 
 that I should go to Mrs. Carter s recep 
 tion in the hack. I made a little protest, 
 however, because, unless I did that, I 
 should soon lose the use of my legs 
 78 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 altogether and perhaps degenerate into 
 a person who has to be pushed around 
 in a wheel chair before I am much older. 
 I said : 
 
 "Well, Margaret, I will go to-day 
 just to please you, but the next time 
 I am going to use my own judgment 
 about it. I have been going in a car 
 riage all summer to avoid sunstroke 
 and apoplexy, and now that fall has 
 come, I must avoid pneumonia and ton 
 sillitis, and in the winter I shall be avoid 
 ing slipping on the ice ; but there s got 
 to be some cranny in the year when I 
 can go to places on my own two feet." 
 
 But while I will submit to carriages, 
 I will not submit to everything, and I 
 draw the line at a trained nurse every 
 time I am a little ill. Kecently I sent 
 
 one of them flying, and while I might 
 79 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 have made the scene easier for every 
 one, still it did me good to get rid of 
 that woman in the summary way I did, 
 or, rather, made Margaret do; for 
 this was one of the occasions when I 
 shirked and took advantage of one of 
 the privileges age gives us. Indeed, I 
 went so far as to tell Margaret that 
 the trained nurse or I would leave the 
 house. 
 
 Of course, when I am really ill and 
 prostrate, and have to be watched at 
 night, then I am willing to have all the 
 discomforts to say nothing of the 
 needless expense of having such a 
 woman about. But when I am well, or 
 pretty nearly well, to have a capped 
 and aproned and uniformed woman, 
 with a strong, dominant will, following 
 my every footstep and bringing me un- 
 80 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 palatable things to eat every two hours, 
 why then, I shall always rebel, as I 
 have done this time. 
 
 I said to Margaret : " This illness 
 has been a trying one to me in every 
 respect. I have never had to keep in 
 my bed any longer than a morning at 
 a time since you were born. I have 
 lain in bed now six days ; three of 
 these days I might as well have been 
 up." 
 
 At which Margaret replied: "I am 
 sure you are better for the rest, dar 
 ling." 
 
 I know 1 7 m not. The reason I know 
 this is that the last three days, when 
 ever the nurse and Margaret left me 
 alone to go down and get some un 
 pleasant eatable from the kitchen for 
 
 wie, I got up and sat in my rocker at 
 81 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the window, which rested my back, 
 though I hated to hurry back to bed, 
 as of course I had to do whenever I 
 heard them coming. So I might just 
 as well, as you can see for yourself, 
 have been up and dressed all the time, 
 without having the nervous strain of 
 listening for their return. 
 
 Then, too, the first day I was ill, I 
 dressed and went downstairs. Every 
 body made a great outcry, and they 
 sent for the doctor again, for the sole 
 purpose of making me do as they said. 
 He is a very sensible young man, and 
 I approve of a great many of his ideas, 
 but at the same time, like most of the 
 modern school, he carries much too far 
 the modern theory of keeping a person 
 in bed until his muscles grow weak 
 
 and his back aches, though, of course, 
 
 82 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 he is not nearly so unreasonable about 
 this as my own children. 
 
 " I ? d like to ask you a simple ques 
 tion, Doctor," I said to him when he 
 told me that, as long as my tempera 
 ture was above normal, I would have 
 to stay in bed. " How do all the work- 
 ingmen do all the people with livings 
 to earn when their temperatures go 
 to 102?" 
 
 He pretended, when they have a 
 fever, that even workingmen have to 
 stay at home first or last; but I don t 
 believe it. When people have to earn 
 a living, nothing will convince me that 
 they pop thermometers down their 
 throats every time their stomachs get 
 upset. 
 
 What neither the doctor nor my chil 
 dren understand is that I know more 
 83 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 about matters concerning my own 
 health than any one else. During my 
 long life I have, of course, had my ups 
 and downs of health like other people, 
 and with the advancing of years, espe 
 cially the last three, my strength and 
 endurance have lessened perceptibly, 
 and I, like other middle-aged people, 
 have had to give myself care, so I have 
 learned pretty well what things to avoid 
 and how to treat my own idiosyncra 
 sies. 
 
 During this illness, how I longed for 
 seme of those old, easy-going days, 
 when, even though I did n t feel well, 
 I managed to get downstairs and sit 
 quietly around with my book or even 
 have a whiff of fresh air; and how I 
 longed for the days when I lay down 
 
 or eat up as I felt inclined, instead 
 
 84 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 of lying rigid and aching in my bed, 
 watched like a cat by a strange woman 
 from morning till night and from night 
 till morning. How I disliked that cot 
 put up in my bedroom for her to sleep 
 in! 
 
 And this was not the worst of it. It 
 seemed to me as if that woman deliber 
 ately hid all my things. One would think, 
 for instance, that, having made a pain 
 ful attempt to do my hair, and she 
 almost pulled out the few remaining 
 strands that are left me, and with which 
 I am naturally unwilling to part, it 
 would have occurred to her to replace 
 the brush and comb and other articles 
 where she found them. When I slipped 
 out of my bed to do my own hair in a 
 comfortable way, I could find nothing 
 
 whatever to do it with; all my toilet 
 85 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 articles, which ordinarily I could have 
 put my hand on in the dark, had disap 
 peared. I looked all over the room for 
 them; they had vanished utterly as if 
 she had swallowed them. I wandered 
 up and down, trying to find them, and, 
 I will confess, so vexed that I had n t 
 any ears for Margaret s approach. 
 When she came into the room and 
 found me up, she exasperated me still 
 more by saying, " "Why, darling, how 
 did you happen to be up? Why didn t 
 you let the trained nurse get whatever 
 you wanted? " 
 
 " Margaret," I said, " keep that wo 
 man out of here for fifteen minutes, 
 because I don t want to say anything 
 that I shall be sorry for later. I sup 
 pose she does what she conceives to be 
 her duty, but a more disorderly and ill- 
 86 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 trained woman it hasn t been my lot to 
 meet. Where s my toothbrush? Where 
 are my brush and comb? What has she 
 done with my licorice tablets? And I 
 can tell you frankly that if she has 
 touched my pen and paper, even 
 though I don t want them now, I 
 shall have to tell her what I think of 
 her. Be so kind as to find my brush and 
 comb so that I can do my hair with 
 some comfort. Trained nurses ought to 
 be taught not to do one s hair up in 
 wads and make them feel like English 
 walnuts to lie on ! " 
 
 I don t pretend that this was a gra 
 cious speech, and it is not the way that 
 I usually feel or talk to any one, espe 
 cially to my daughter. I merely quote 
 myself to show to what a state of exas 
 peration a woman of my age and train- 
 87 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ing may be driven. That woman was 
 there to take care of my health; the 
 reason I suffered her about me at all 
 was to save my family anxiety. But it 
 is extremely trying for a woman of 
 my years, except in cases of the most 
 dire necessity, to have fussing about 
 her person an outsider who upsets all 
 her little personal ways; meddles with 
 her personal belongings, and renders 
 her far more uncomfortable than com 
 fortable. I am sure that my tempera 
 ture remained above normal partly 
 through the continual irritation that I 
 suffered because of these things. 
 
 Then, too, I know it was not good 
 for me to have to watch every chance 
 to slip out of bed to brush my own 
 teeth. Brushing my teeth in bed, or, 
 worse still, allowing some one else to 
 88 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 brush them for me, is a thing which I 
 should have to be far sicker than I have 
 ever been to have happen to me. When 
 I give up getting out of bed to brush my 
 teeth of my own accord, then my chil 
 dren may know I m really ill, and can 
 send, if they like, for a day nurse and 
 a night nurse, for I shall be past caring 
 how many troublesome and disorderly 
 women I have about me. 
 
 Three times in one night she got up 
 to ask me if I spoke, or if I wanted any 
 thing, just because I cleared my throat 
 as it s my habit to do. Finally I said 
 to her : " Miss Jenkins, if you came to 
 my bedside less often, my chances of 
 going to sleep would, I think, be greater, 
 and I m sure it is better for your health 
 as well as mine for you to remain in 
 your own bed." 
 
 89 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 All of which shows under what a ner 
 vous pressure I have been forced to 
 live. I explained my point of view to 
 Margaret after the departure of the 
 nurse. I said to my daughter : " Mar 
 garet, I m taking five kinds of pills and 
 tonics, and as I ve lived with my own 
 stomach now a large number of years, 
 I am perfectly sure that the reason why 
 my appetite remains so poor is that 
 I m constantly dosing, and you need 
 bring me no more of those strychnine 
 tablets and you can put the pepsin away, 
 and as for the liquid things in bottles, 
 I won t take them either." 
 
 I stuck to this for quite a little 
 while, but Margaret had got it into her 
 head that my whole life and existence 
 depended on a few little pasteboard 
 
 boxes of pills. Lines that I don t re- 
 90 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 member having seen in her face since 
 Betty was so ill appeared there. Fi 
 nally, she came to my bedside and took 
 my hand and said : " Mother, I simply 
 can t bear to see you trifling with your 
 health in this way, and I don t think it s 
 fair to us to do as you are doing. You 
 can t get well, and you can t get strong, 
 unless you will take care of yourself." 
 Her tone and her whole manner 
 touched me, and I saw what people who 
 live in the Land of Old Age sometimes 
 forget, how great and pressing the 
 things we know to be of little importance 
 seem to our great, grown-up sons and 
 daughters. There was in Margaret s 
 tone and in her attitude almost that 
 poignant agony that a mother has over 
 her sick child. 
 
 She could not bear to have me sick. 
 91 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 I saw then that each meal that I could 
 not eat, each time I did not take my 
 medicine, even my just rebellion 
 against my trained nurse, had taken 
 from her a little of her strength and 
 vitality. 
 
 It is hard, when one is ill and suffer 
 ing one s self, to realize the extent to 
 which this reacts on those about us, 
 especially for us older people. I had a 
 quick vision of Margaret s seeing me 
 walking off wantonly, needlessly, into 
 the land of shadows. I know, of course, 
 that when the day comes, pills and 
 trained nurses and gruel will not retard 
 my footsteps, and I shall very much 
 like to pass through the series of minor 
 illnesses that may be before me in my 
 own way, comfortably, without too much 
 
 nagging and without having my hair- 
 92 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 brushes hidden, or having to lie in bed 
 when I know it is bad for my back. But 
 after all, I think I saw on that morning 
 that my annoyances had been small 
 compared to Margaret s anxieties. She 
 threw aside for the moment the smiling 
 " You-will-be-better-to-morrow " mask 
 that she had consistently assumed from 
 the beginning of my illness, and I re 
 alized for the first time that the week 
 had been one where shadowy fears had 
 pressed about her, taking from her her 
 gayety, her confidence. Each time I 
 had sprung from my bed to get some 
 thing I wanted, she had seen the 
 shadows about me ; each moment of 
 my weakness had whispered desolation 
 to her. 
 
 I thought of the long evenings that 
 
 she and Dudley had passed together, 
 93 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 discussing with the trained nurse my 
 shortcomings and my willfulnesses ; 
 and I saw that my small rebellions had 
 been to her not small rebellions at all, but 
 willful throwing away of so many of 
 the days that it may be yet permitted 
 us to pass together. 
 
 For one moment I was almost sorry 
 that I had sent that woman away, but 
 that moment of weakness did not stay 
 long, because, after all, it s I who will 
 have to be the judge of how to lengthen 
 out the span of those days. At the same 
 time, as we sat there together in silence, 
 Margaret holding my hand and I look 
 ing at the anxious lines in her face, I 
 made up my mind to take the pepsin 
 and the strychnine and all the other 
 things that they make such a fuss 
 over. 
 
 94 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 So I told Margaret when she implored 
 (and I can t translate to you her accent 
 of anxiety) , " Now do take the medicine 
 the doctor left for you ; it certainly will 
 strengthen you," "I will, Margaret." 
 
 But even then a flicker of spirit rose 
 in me ; for all of Margaret s and Dud 
 ley s agonizing, I m not dead yet, 
 very far from it, and it s very seldom 
 that I get a good chance to influence 
 my children s lives. So that is why I 
 said to my daughter : 
 
 "Margaret, I can see that you are 
 very anxious about me. But I m equally 
 anxious about you, though I don t pre 
 sume to nag you and make such a fuss 
 about it. I will take the tablets and the 
 tonics and the powders, and even the 
 horrid things put up in gelatine cap 
 sules, which are as hard to swallow as 
 95 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 any hen s egg in its shell, if you will 
 make a few concessions on your part : 
 that heavy tailored skirt that you ve 
 been wearing I know is the cause of 
 your backache. Will you promise me 
 to put it aside, for a while anyway ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother," Margaret agreed. 
 
 " And will you try to eat your meals 
 more regularly ? " (For Margaret has 
 been doing a great deal of outside club 
 work, and half the time comes home to 
 lunch ten or fifteen minutes late, when 
 all the meat is cold and spoiled, and I 
 know that it will injure her stomach in 
 the long run.) 
 
 " Margaret," I said, " I Ve studied 
 the rules of health for a great many 
 years, and as you are fond of boasting, 
 I m in pretty good condition as a rule, 
 
 considering my time of life and the 
 96 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 things I ve been through. So if I m to 
 do what you want me to, I think it is 
 only fair that you should, in smaller 
 matters, be guided by me a little bit ; 
 and this sitting and reading so far from 
 the light and spoiling your eyes is a 
 thing that has got to be put a stop to, if 
 I am to take another strychnine tablet." 
 
 Margaret agreed readily to all these 
 things. It may seem to you that I was 
 taking an unfair advantage ; but I do 
 my share of silent worrying on my own 
 side, and it seemed to me only fair 
 exchange, because undoubtedly it will 
 benefit my health to be saved these 
 small anxieties, besides benefiting Mar 
 garet s. 
 
 Margaret agreed readily because I 
 think she saw the reasonableness and 
 
 justice of my remarks. 
 97 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 "May I bring you tapioca now?" 
 she asked at the end of my talk. 
 
 " No, Margaret," I replied. " I am 
 going down to dinner to-day, and I am 
 going to eat some solid food -things 
 that I want to eat, which I know will 
 be much better for my health." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE COMPENSATIONS OF AGE 
 
 I GRUMBLE a good deal, it seems to me, 
 about my children s too anxious care of 
 me ; I make life seem shorn of many 
 of its pleasures, and so it is ; but age 
 also clips life of complications. It is the 
 great simplifier. 
 
 For instance, the moment my eye fell 
 upon my new neighbors, I knew I 
 wasn t going to like them. This may 
 sound as though I am disagreeable 
 and ill-natured, but I don t think I am. 
 Indeed I have lived so long in this world 
 that I feel free to express my opinions 
 without being afraid of being misunder 
 stood. A younger woman might not give 
 out so frankly what she thinks, as she 
 99 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 has her reputation to make ; but one 
 opinion, more or less, of my neighbors, 
 will not alter my reputation, for if I have 
 proved myself, in the long time I have 
 stayed in this world, kindly and not 
 hard to please and ready to make al 
 lowances, I believe people will make 
 allowances for me, and it will not hurt 
 me one bit to ease my mind by saying 
 that I do not fancy my new neighbors. 
 I don t suppose I had any reason for it, 
 for they seemed very nice and pleasant 
 people. 
 
 The older woman, the one Margaret 
 picked out as a companion for me, was 
 fastened into one of those new-fangled 
 frocks that have hooks in every conceiv 
 able spot where a hook ought not to 
 be and none where they ought to be. 
 
 Not that this had anything to do with 
 100 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 my liking her, as I have plenty of 
 friends of my own age who enjoy keep 
 ing up with the styles and like to have 
 the dressing hour one of martyrdom. I 
 just didn t feel that these people and I 
 would have any thing to talk about, and 
 conversation would always be of that 
 rudimentary kind that happens on the 
 outskirts of acquaintance. 
 
 I said nothing about this, however, 
 and in a few days, when Margaret sug 
 gested we should call, "It seems," said 
 I, " rather damp to me to-day. You run 
 over, Margaret dear, so as to be nice 
 and cordial and leave my cards. If we 
 are in for a spell of bad weather, I 
 may not get around for a week or two." 
 
 So saying, I settled myself comfort 
 ably in my chair and told the maid to 
 
 telephone to my friend Mrs. "Welling- 
 101 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ton to see if she would come and play 
 logomachy. I sat there waiting with 
 that most comfortable of all feelings in 
 my heart, a feeling that comes of 
 having decently avoided a disagreeable 
 duty. I looked back over my long life 
 and thought, of the many times I had 
 called and called and called on people 
 I didn t want to, new church people 
 who I thought were lonely; people who 
 were friends of friends of mine with 
 whom I had no more in common than 
 I had with a flagstaff. 
 
 Before she went out, Margaret asked, 
 "Are there any more calls you don t 
 feel like making? for I might as well 
 do them all up, now that I am started." 
 
 At that I made out a list of all 
 the people I didn t especially want to 
 see in town. It was not a very large 
 102 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 one, for I am fond of my fellow crea 
 tures. Though, strictly speaking, my 
 day of calling is over, when I want to 
 see any one I go and see them and 
 spend a good hour or more in a real 
 talk. I am no longer a young woman; 
 I am an elderly woman, and will soon 
 be old, and the day for me, thank good 
 ness, is past when I spend an afternoon 
 in that most senseless occupation, 
 fifteen-minute calls, where the people 
 are called upon according to neighbor 
 hood, and not because any one feels any 
 particular need of their conversation. 
 
 In many ways, as we advance in 
 years, we return to the attitude we had 
 when we were children. If we grow 
 old wisely, we lay aside the senseless 
 forms and meaningless conventions of 
 
 society and go back to a more primi- 
 103 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 
 
 tive mode of social intercourse, pick 
 ing our friends the way children do, 
 because we like them, spending time 
 enough with them to get some real good 
 out of them. 
 
 It was with joy that I saw my daugh 
 ter depart to call upon the Towners, 
 for this was the name of the new peo 
 ple. In this world, of course Towners 
 have to be called upon, but oh, glori 
 ous day! the time is past when it is 
 I who must do it. If I have to forego 
 some things I would like to do; if old 
 age in the shape of waning strength 
 says to me often, " Thou shalt not ! " 
 so do my years smile upon me and say 
 to me, " Thou needst not." 
 
 I have moments of unhappiness and 
 rebellion, as I suppose most older wo 
 men have as old age creeps on them 
 104 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 unawares as they work and dream and 
 live; I have moments of sorrow that 
 my real work in the world is done, and 
 moments of sadness that my children 
 no longer come to me, but spare me, 
 not wishing to trouble me; but oh, with 
 what happiness do I leave the perform 
 ing of some duties to the younger gen 
 eration. Think what an emancipation it 
 would be if some voice should cry, 
 " No more calls ! " This is what the 
 voice of age said to me, as I sat that 
 afternoon by the window watching my 
 dear daughter ply dutifully forth. Many 
 years will have to pass by before she 
 can sit down quietly before her pleasant 
 open fire and rejoice that never, never 
 again will she need to make a duty 
 call. 
 
 As I watched Margaret go her way 
 105 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 on her round of calls, I saw all the 
 family of tiresome duties before me; 
 not only calls, but committee meetings 
 of one kind and another. Not a com 
 mittee meeting do I have to go to. I 
 don t have to feel like a beggar getting 
 money for the church organ or the new 
 church carpet. I did these things will 
 ingly and cheerfully in my time, and 
 now, thank goodness, I don t have to 
 do them. I even make the confession 
 that there are some times, when Mar 
 garet says to me, "Mother, it s too 
 rainy for you to go to church," that I 
 agree with her with a certain alacrity. 
 
 Oh, blessed are the immunities of 
 age! 
 
 This morning there walked past my 
 house a young person. She was pretty, 
 
 she was young. I have no doubt that I 
 106 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ^ ^ _ __ _ 
 
 should have been an object of pity in 
 her eyes as I sat there in my com 
 fortable wide chair in my comfortable 
 dress, which, if you please, is a waist 
 and skirt, the waist hooking in the 
 front. This pretty young person s back 
 hair was built out one foot behind her 
 head with what aids I am too innocent 
 to pretend to tell you; her frock was 
 of the kind that fits with distressing 
 closeness until it bursts out in a flare of 
 pleats at the knees, and she wore upon 
 her head a prodigious hat. Her type 
 was not extreme. I see young women 
 and maidens every day more fantas 
 tically and uncomfortably arrayed. 
 
 " Oh," I thought to myself, " there s 
 a spring in youth, to be sure, and a 
 joyousness in it, but oh, how uncom 
 fortable youth makes itself ! " 
 107 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 I see my daughter Margaret clawing 
 around her spinal column, trying to 
 hook her clothes up the back, and re 
 joice that I am of an age where, fash 
 ion book or no fashion book, things may 
 yet fasten up the front. I don t need to 
 wear a hat that looks like a chimney 
 or a monstrous mushroom; I can wear 
 broad, low-heeled, cloth-topped shoes 
 while the styles in shoes skip around 
 from heavy mannish to paper soles and 
 pointed toes. 
 
 There are women, of course, who do 
 not take advantage of the blessed priv 
 ileges which age brings them, but, after 
 all, not many of us. Most of us have 
 sense given us to realize that there are 
 certain fads in this world that we are 
 through with. 
 
 So I confess that I saw the little girl 
 108 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 with the imposing hair and hat go her 
 way without envying her her youth. 
 Would I not like to be young again? 
 Who would not if they could have 
 youth plus the wisdom which their 
 years have given them? 
 
 It may be that it is "sour grapes" 
 that makes me feel as I do, but a pro 
 found thankfulness sweeps over me 
 when I run through the long list of 
 things I need not do any more, and if 
 I rejoice that certain distasteful duties 
 are removed from me, how much more 
 do I rejoice over the amusements that 
 did not amuse me that I no longer 
 have to go to. No more do I have to 
 attend concerts of an ultra - classical 
 nature; no longer do I have to read 
 the newest book if I do not choose 
 
 to; if I am ever bored, it is not any 
 109 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 longer by those things which are sup 
 posed to divert me. 
 
 Fancy your life stripped of all the 
 things that are tiresome to do, that are 
 a weariness to your spirit. What does 
 all this cry about the simple life mean, 
 this turning to nature, this camp 
 ing in Maine woods, this flying to little 
 shacks by the seashore? Not so much 
 the desire for beauty, for that is acces 
 sible to very many people, but leisure 
 to enjoy it, and attaining this leisure by 
 throwing out of the window what one 
 might call " the padding of life." I do 
 not have to leave my comfortable home 
 for an uncomfortable, half - furnished 
 shanty to revel in the beauty of the 
 maple tree which makes a golden glory 
 outside my window. Without effort on 
 my part life has handed me these extra 
 110 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 hours in which to look around the 
 world and enjoy the beauties of it with 
 peace in my heart, and it seems that for 
 those who look upon age rightly, life 
 becomes a spacious, roomy place. For 
 some the spaciousness means loneliness; 
 through the vaulted roominess of the 
 days voices echo infrequently ; the wide 
 vistas of time are unpeopled and bare; 
 memories only walk through, shad 
 owy and with sad eyes. I can only 
 thank God that age has not come to 
 me in such a guise. For me and many 
 of my contemporaries the priceless gift 
 of time has been the recompense of our 
 having lived so long in this world; and 
 instead of our days being full of the 
 needful but distasteful duties, and clut 
 tered, besides, and choked with the 
 
 pleasureless pleasurings in which I see 
 111 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 those younger than myself spending 
 their days, we may now turn and do 
 the things which we have always 
 wanted to do. And for those who have 
 lived with zest and vigor, that is to 
 say, those who have lived at all, there 
 is hardly one who has not had some pur 
 suit or some taste which was crowded 
 out of their lives. If you look around 
 the world you may see any number 
 of vigorous elderly women doing the 
 things they wanted to do all their days, 
 and doing them with the earnestness 
 and relish of children at play. 
 
CHAPTEK VI 
 
 THE SPENDING OF TIME 
 
 THERE are some older people to whom 
 life has not handed out so many vacant 
 spaces, and whose days yet remain 
 crowded, not with the unavoidable du 
 ties, but with those that others impose 
 upon them. 
 
 I know a valiant old lady of seventy 
 whose vigorous and sane presence was 
 of such inspiration to her many daugh 
 ters that " mother " was on a perpetual 
 round of visits of advice and consola 
 tion. As is the case with so dominant 
 and self-reliant a nature, she had raised 
 up a brood of fine women, but women 
 accustomed to rely upon her, even into 
 
 middle age. As happens often in such 
 113 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 cases, she first domineered over them 
 and they in turn ate up her time and 
 her leisure until she rebelled against 
 this tender slavery of her own creating. 
 One day she arose, saying, " Before an 
 other of these granddaughters of mine 
 gets the croup, I m going around the 
 world ! " which, it seems, she had al 
 ways desired to do, but had not had the 
 time for. So, with much dexterity, she 
 eluded the vigilance of her loving chil 
 dren, hopped upon a boat, and informed 
 them by telegram where she was go 
 ing. 
 
 " For," she told me by letter, " I have 
 no intention of viewing the marvels of 
 this earth with a rhinitis pill popped 
 into my mouth by one of my daughters 
 every few minutes. I don t want to go 
 
 through the tombs of the Ptolemies 
 114 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 with goloshes on my feet, as I know I 
 should have to do if one of the girls 
 went with me." 
 
 In one s travels around the earth one 
 meets many elderly people who, like 
 this friend of mine, are seeing at last 
 the sights they had planned to see all 
 their days ; fulfilling the dreams, often 
 times, of a far remote youth. 
 
 Again, it is some desire for know 
 ledge that we indulge in in our old age. 
 Two old friends of mine a retired 
 minister and his wife are at this mo 
 ment pursuing the study of biology 
 with all the ardor of youth. Through 
 the years of his long life this dear man 
 and his wife had looked forward to the 
 time when they might slake their curi 
 osity about the wonders of the earth, 
 
 and now they are doing it with the pas- 
 115 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 sion of youth. It was a real need with 
 them and a true desire which they had 
 always between them kept alive. I do 
 not know any reward that a life of toil 
 can hold more precious than this fulfill 
 ment of a lifelong desire. 
 
 Another friend of mine had a very 
 full life, though she never married. 
 She took care of her brother s house, 
 a complicated establishment full of 
 guests ; but always she cherished a love 
 for the Eomance languages and read 
 much of their literature in translation; 
 and when she had time, which was after 
 her sixty-fifth birthday, she learned 
 Spanish and French and Italian. 
 
 At this minute, down the street Mrs. 
 Baker is making rugs and carpets out 
 of all the rags she has saved for the 
 
 last thirty years. The story of how she 
 116 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 has conserved these pieces is an epic, 
 a tribute to the force and persistence 
 of the human will. Her children, one 
 and all, have tried to make her throw 
 away " all that rubbish." They have 
 pointed out to her that her collection 
 of old pieces was a mania, and that no 
 thing would ever come of it ; also, they 
 might be doing " somebody some good." 
 During her absence her daughters would 
 lead commiserating friends to the attic 
 and show them rag-bags bursting, trunks 
 overflowing, bureau drawers yawning, 
 with the pieces their mother had col 
 lected. Oh, the younger and older gen 
 erations had some doughty passages- 
 at-arms over what the younger women 
 called a " needless and unhygienic ac 
 cumulation." 
 
 " Some day," Mrs. Baker persisted, 
 117 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 "I intend to make rag carpets from 
 them when I have time." 
 
 She has time now, and, I am glad to 
 say, is doing what she always wanted 
 to. The making of rag carpets may not 
 have been a high goal to aim at, but 
 what matter? The longer I live, the 
 more I believe it is the spirit in which 
 we do things that makes our acts pleas 
 ing or displeasing to a Greater Intel 
 ligence. Who knows whether rag car 
 pets made with a cheerfulness which is 
 in itself a prayer may not be more pleas 
 ing to the Lord than much more pre 
 tentious occupations performed sadly? 
 
 To many of us the moment of leisure 
 comes too late ; we allow the daily occu 
 pations of our business to crowd upon 
 us so in middle life that, when old age 
 
 comes upon us, it finds us without re- 
 118 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 source. So it is with men, while women 
 fill up the depths of the spirit with a 
 countless reiteration of detail, bank 
 rupting themselves; leaving themselves 
 dependent upon the good will of others 
 for all amusement. 
 
 Many of us have worked so hard and 
 life has treated us so ungently that all 
 the fair lights that burned for us in the 
 country of youth have been put out ; 
 but, thank God! it is n t so with all. 
 That elusive moment, "when I have 
 time," that every one talks about, comes 
 to almost all of us, and it finds a certain 
 number of us with a will to do what we 
 like. But here with the things that we 
 want to do, we often find ourselves in 
 the position of children who plan out 
 tasks that their little strength will not 
 perform. For ever and ever we bruise 
 119 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ourselves against the limitations of the 
 flesh. Oh, the books that we wish to 
 read, for which our eyes do not serve ; 
 the pleasurings denied us ; the work cut 
 away from us because of the limitation 
 of our strength, and the knowledge 
 that this limitation must always increase. 
 The size of the earth over which one 
 may roam shrinks day by day, until it 
 decreases to the house, to one s room, 
 to one s bed ; and finally to the nar 
 rowest space of all. 
 
 So side by side with the things that 
 we can now do because we have more 
 time are the things that we have no 
 strength for and the things that our 
 children promise to do for us and never 
 get around to, our children who are 
 so eager to perform all sorts of small 
 
 kindnesses. 
 
 120 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 I know that I have been wanting for 
 three years to straighten my attic the 
 way I would like to see it done, and 
 neither have I been permitted to do it, 
 nor will my children do it for me. It 
 is one of those things that has got to 
 be done by one of the family ; no 
 cleaning-woman can do anything ex 
 cept the heavier part of the work. 
 And now, whenever I go up and sort 
 over a trunk of letters or a chest of 
 drawers, some one is sure to hear me 
 walking around up there and come after 
 me, until what Margaret and Dudley 
 call my " attic face " is a joke in the 
 family. They pretend that there is a 
 certain joyful but furtive look comes 
 over me when I have " designs," as 
 Dudley says, on the attic. 
 
 " That attic, I hope, will never get 
 121 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 cleared," he tells me. " It is all the joy 
 to you that a double life would be. It 
 gives you the joy of forbidden fruit. As 
 long as it is n t cleared, you can sneak 
 up there and go on a terrible debauch ; 
 of course you are generally ill and miser 
 able after it, but who minds that when 
 they have made a night of it ? " 
 
 In this disrespectful way does my son 
 joke me, not realizing that the state of 
 the attic is a real source of annoyance 
 to me. 
 
 Almost every older woman has some 
 thing equivalent to my attic. Oftentimes 
 this attic is a thing a woman is strong 
 enough to do herself, but which her 
 children, with their too loving care, pre 
 vent her doing. Sometimes little house 
 hold duties that she has attended to all 
 
 her life herself, from one day to another, 
 122 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 her children have decided she isn t 
 strong enough to do. Perhaps one time 
 she got tired ; who does n t ? Young 
 people as well as old get tired. And 
 sometimes I think that those old people 
 are most to be envied, after all, who 
 keep forever in the harness and to whom 
 each day brings its compulsory duties ; 
 in them lies the essence of youth, which, 
 after all, I suppose, has a good deal to 
 do with the feeling that one is helping 
 to make the wheels of the world s work 
 go round. 
 
 I think that many a woman has had 
 her life shortened by this fretting that 
 might have been avoided, much more 
 than it would have been by the fatigue 
 that doing what she wished to would 
 incur. When day after day one asks 
 
 those young people, upon whom one 
 123 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 has become dependent for some service, 
 to look after this or that, the chains of 
 age weigh heavily. We have to ask 
 in all the varying tones that the de 
 pendent must use, from the cajolery 
 with which we get our own way to the 
 futile bursts of irritation, and in the end 
 perhaps resort to subconscious strategy, 
 lucky at last if we can but accomplish 
 our purpose. When I do this there is a 
 feeling deep in my heart of how round 
 about, how circuitous, are my acts, how 
 unlike the " I " that once brought about 
 the small things in the world that I 
 wished to; so short a time ago I could 
 accomplish in my life, in the ordering 
 of my household, what I wished. 
 
 The spaces in our lives that our chil 
 dren have helped to empty by making 
 
 it difficult for us to do those things 
 124 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 which they consider harmful for our 
 well-being, they try to fill up with their 
 kindly and blundering hands. Every 
 older woman who lives much with her 
 children knows what I mean. 
 
 Margaret and Dudley, I know, feel 
 that I don t see enough of women of 
 my own age. Mrs. Allen, at the other 
 end of the town, and I have a very good 
 time together whenever we meet, and 
 yet it is quite a distance for although 
 it is a little town where we live, it is 
 sprawled all along the Common for 
 us on our old legs to run in and out, 
 and we have managed to live half a life 
 time without ever becoming intimate, 
 notwithstanding a very real enjoyment 
 we have in each other s society. 
 
 This liking Dudley tries to further as 
 
 though it was a hothouse plant. 
 125 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 "You look < down, mother; shan t I 
 telephone to Mrs. Allen ? Or let me run 
 down in the motor and get her for you." 
 Or, " I m just going over to Lembury; 
 shan t I drop you at Mrs. Allen s for 
 a half -hour ? " until Mrs. Allen has be 
 come to me the symbol of "amusing 
 mother." 
 
 "When I see them at it, it touches me 
 in my heart and it touches me in my 
 temper as well. I don t want to be 
 amused; I don t want to have occupa 
 tion found for me. If I have nothing 
 better to do than to sit with my hands 
 folded, then I prefer to sit; nor does 
 conversation like this affect me in the 
 slightest. 
 
 Margaret will say to Dudley: 
 
 "I think that Mrs. So-and-So has 
 
 changed very much this last year. She 
 126 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 has allowed herself to lose interest in 
 things." 
 
 "Yes," Dudley will reply, "I think 
 an older woman makes a great mistake 
 not to cultivate her own hobbies." 
 
 "And beside that," Margaret will add, 
 "keep abreast with the times. Now 
 there is Mrs. Griscom," she went on in 
 reproving tones, " I see her out motor 
 ing with her son almost every day." 
 
 Now here I knew what they were 
 getting to ; they wanted me to go out 
 in Dudley s new motor. Now, if there s 
 anything I dislike it is nasty, smelly, 
 jouncing, child-grazing, dog-smashing, 
 chicken-routing motors. I ride along 
 with my heart in my mouth, not 
 for my own life and limbs, although 
 those are uncomfortable enough being 
 
 jounced along like a piece of corn in a 
 127 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 popper, which seems to me no way for 
 a woman to spend her few remaining 
 years of life; but it is for the people 
 along the wayside whom we almost 
 crush, the trembling horses, the 
 squawking hens, the frightened chil 
 dren that rack my nerves. 
 
 I don t like motors any more than I 
 like trolley cars, although I ride in the 
 cars when I have to go from one town 
 to another, but I don t enjoy them any 
 more than I enjoy trains. If all my 
 neighbors want to do it and enjoy it, let 
 them, I don t intend to ! But Marga 
 ret always had a mania for having me 
 ride ; before Dudley got the car, it was 
 carriages, but now, under one pretext or 
 another, they try to get me to go mo 
 toring with Dudley. They say that if I 
 
 once get into the car I will get to like 
 
 128 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 it, but I know that I shall not. I shall 
 not get to like it any more than I shall 
 ever have Mrs. Allen for my bosom 
 friend. 
 
 These things can t be forced upon 
 one; we will for ever and ever, young 
 or old, choose our amusement from 
 some hidden spring within ourselves, 
 and if new doors are to be opened to 
 us of enjoyment, it is our hands that 
 must lift the latch, though we follow 
 in the lead of some beloved person. 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 THE LAND OF OLD AGE 
 
 I HAVE talked, I suppose, rather fanci 
 fully about what I have chosen to call 
 the Land of Old Age. It is because old 
 age has seemed to me often not only a 
 state of mind, or a physical condition, 
 but a sort of different dimension, an 
 actual country where we who are older 
 must live. Often I see people approach 
 ing its boundaries, withdrawing from 
 them, ignoring them, and next I know, 
 I come across a new citizen. It is an 
 invisible country, this Land of Old 
 Age, and however young you are, 
 you have been near it. I should count 
 you unfortunate, indeed, if in the heat 
 
 of the day you had not turned into its 
 130 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 shady by-paths and lingered a moment 
 with its quiet dwellers. It is a very 
 peaceful land; there is not much work 
 to be done; duty is rarely seen; so sel 
 dom, in fact, that sometimes those of us 
 who have gone there to live for good 
 feel that we have passed our time of 
 usefulness, and have moments of hot 
 resentment that we are not out in the 
 world doing its work for it. 
 
 I feel that way myself often, and at 
 such times make excursions outside; 
 always the gentle hands of my children 
 lead me back to my own country. And 
 I sometimes feel that the reason we re 
 sist taking up our places there is this 
 sense that we are not allowed to come 
 out when we wish; that we are kept 
 prisoners, not through our own weak 
 nesses, but because there are certain 
 131 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 conventions as to what is suitable or 
 unsuitable for us old people. 
 
 But lately I have come to believe that 
 the people who live in the Land of Old 
 Age have their own appointed part to 
 play, and that they help make up the 
 sum of life. 
 
 After all, one need not dust and 
 sweep and make pies and cake, to be 
 of service to those we love. We would 
 not wish to see our little children fetch 
 and carry, and yet they are the dearest 
 things in the world to us. So we older 
 people, I believe, do more than we know 
 for those we love when we sit in our 
 own quiet country, as I found out a little 
 while ago when I started to make an 
 excursion into the world that works. 
 
 The mistake our younger people 
 
 make is in regarding age as a fixed 
 132 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 quantity. They act on the firm convic 
 tion that you are older every day you 
 live, whereas age is as relative and va 
 riable as youth. You have only to warm 
 the blood with any emotion, joy or 
 relief from suspense or patriotism or 
 pity, and the Land of Old Age van 
 ishes; especially when there is a great 
 calamity, the old people troop forth as 
 eager to lend a hand, as strong to do 
 a day s work, as ever they were ; and I 
 think it is not their fault that they so 
 often turn their disappointed faces back 
 to their familiar country without having 
 taken part in what is going on. 
 
 When I heard, for instance, that a 
 little town which squats dirty and hard 
 working on the outskirts of our village 
 had been flooded in the spring freshet, 
 
 and that there were twenty homeless 
 133 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 families and a hundred and fifty people 
 out of work, I was eager to help. Our 
 whole town at once bestirred itself to 
 do something, and I was glad that the 
 Committee of Ways and Means met at 
 our house, even if their ways of doing 
 things seemed cumbrous to me. In my 
 day when we gave benefits, we had no 
 committees nor chairmen nor any other 
 kind of machinery. One of the ladies 
 went around with a notebook from 
 house to house and asked what might 
 be expected from each one, and her 
 paper at the end of the day read : " Mrs. 
 Smith, four dozen biscuits ; Mrs. Jones, 
 two layer-cakes," etc. Mrs. Jeremiah 
 Curtis and Mrs. Henry Lessey always 
 did the scalloped oysters. (Howl should 
 enjoy a plate of scalloped oysters like 
 
 that for my supper to-night !) And in 
 134 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 this easy fashion we brought the thing 
 about. 
 
 But I was eager, just the same, to 
 join the ladies assembled in my par 
 lors. And now an odd thing happened. 
 I suppose as one gets along in years 
 one gets acquainted less readily with 
 the new people; for here in my own 
 village where I have lived over thirty 
 years, and in my own house, I found 
 myself an outsider, surrounded by peo 
 ple whom I barely knew by sight. They 
 began the meeting in the stiff, formal 
 way I believe is known as parliament 
 ary, but after a little while they lim 
 bered up and began discussing the 
 affair more naturally, and I became in 
 terested. It came over me that some 
 thing ought to be done right away for 
 
 these poor creatures. So I said: 
 135 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " Ladies, this party five days off is n t 
 going to clothe those blessed children, 
 or their fathers or mothers, for that 
 matter, who were driven out of their 
 homes in the night with only what they 
 had on them." 
 
 " Why, what a good idea ! " exclaimed 
 one of the ladies. 
 
 Perhaps I am supersensitive, but it 
 seemed to me she was surprised that I 
 at my age was capable of any ideas at 
 all. I was about to say that I would 
 have a canopy-top called from the stable 
 and make a house-to-house canvass and 
 have a big lot of things ready to send out 
 by the evening trolley, when some one 
 said : " I move that we appoint an Im 
 mediate Relief Committee. Can t some 
 one ring up Susan Millsborough ? She s 
 
 just the one to push that through." 
 136 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 In spite of myself I felt a little dis 
 appointed, for it is a great satisfaction 
 to do things for people one s self and 
 to do them in one s own way. Before I 
 spoke I had seen myself on the rounds 
 in the canopy-top, but now I suddenly 
 felt very much out of it again. Not 
 only were there faces and methods of 
 work new to me, but my own little idea 
 was picked away from me and gobbled 
 into their cumbrous modern machinery. 
 There was a great deal of telephoning 
 back and forth, and it was on my tongue 
 a half-dozen times to offer to go; but 
 I realized that the canopy-top and I, 
 from whatever point of view one chose 
 to look at us, were not a committee. 
 
 So I held my tongue until I got 
 interested again. It was to be, I gath 
 ered, a huge entertainment, with all 
 137 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 sorts of elaborations. All the simple 
 affairs, such as we would in former 
 times have given for two years rolled 
 into one, wouldn t have made such a 
 great affair. I who knew the slender 
 resources of our little town so well, for 
 we are not a rich village, found myself 
 saying, 
 
 " Won t the cost of getting it up take 
 away the greater part of the profits? " 
 
 " It will be such an advertisement of 
 the whole disaster," one of them as 
 sured me. "The other towns in the 
 neighborhood, after our example, will 
 feel they have to do something hand 
 
 some." 
 
 There was not the least suggestion 
 of patronage in her tone, and it was 
 not due to her that I felt that my little 
 remark had flown so wide of the point, 
 
 138 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 but only that we talked across the gap 
 Time had made between us, she on the 
 one side understanding the new meth 
 ods, and I understanding only those I 
 was used to. But all the same, that 
 afternoon I stood on my own littL ter 
 ritory and listened to how people did 
 things in the world, with an ever-grow 
 ing sense of isolation. Many of the 
 things in this world that are hard to 
 bear are no one s fault at all; they are 
 so because the world is as it is. 
 
 All the next day my daughter Mar 
 garet bounced in and out unceasingly. 
 I tried to catch her a dozen times, for 
 I wanted so very much to do my some 
 thing, however little, for the distressed 
 people, I have always been so used 
 to doing my share in the world. At last 
 I buttonholed Margaret. 
 139 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " Listen, Margaret," I began. 
 
 " Excuse me for a moment, darling ; 
 there s the telephone." 
 
 After a hurried conference, Margaret 
 pinned on her hat. I followed her up. 
 
 "Before you go," I hastened to say, 
 "let me ask you one thing." 
 
 " I ve only four minutes to catch the 
 four-thirty-two trolley," she answered, 
 and kissed me affectionately and dashed 
 away. 
 
 One of the children ran after her, 
 calling, 
 
 "Mamma, may I " 
 
 " Ask your uncle," called my daugh 
 ter ; and her tone and gesture, as 
 though she couldn t stand one more 
 thing, made me see under what pres 
 sure she was working. 
 
 At that moment my son Dudley 
 140 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 walked up the path. I was planted on the 
 steps where Margaret had left me when 
 she whirled by. 
 
 "Anything I can do ? " he asked. 
 
 He was hurried, too, but of all my 
 children he is the one who always has 
 time for me. 
 
 " All I want to know is, do they want 
 me to make cake for them," I said, 
 with some spirit, for I was tired of 
 being put off like an importunate child. 
 I make an excellent Hartford election- 
 cake, and it is much better on the second 
 or third day. My cake, indeed, is famous 
 among my children and grandchildren, 
 and I thought that in this way I could 
 give my mite to the poor distressed 
 people. 
 
 " That would be awfully nice, mo 
 ther." Dudley s tone was apologetic. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " But they ve already arranged for the 
 cake, the baker gives the material at 
 wholesale prices and does the work. 
 "We wanted to pay for his time, but he 
 eays it will be a good advertisement. 
 Not that yours wouldn t be lots bet 
 ter" 
 
 "I wanted to do something for them," 
 I said forlornly. 
 
 " Why, did n t you do enough ? You 
 know you ve given more to the Imme 
 diate Relief Committee than you can 
 afford. Isn t that enough ?" He took 
 my arm. " Here," he said, " let me bring 
 your chair into the shade. It s so plea 
 sant here this afternoon. I only wish I 
 had the time " and Dudley was off 
 too. 
 
 The last thing I wanted was to sit 
 
 quietly in the shade, for I am what the 
 142 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 people aronnd here call " a mighty spry 
 old lady." Just how old I will not tell, 
 for it was a convention of my genera 
 tion that a woman ought not to be a 
 minute older than she could help. I am 
 not old enough yet, at any rate, to have 
 taken to boasting about the remarkable 
 number of years I have stayed in the 
 world. But I am old enough for my 
 middle-aged sons and daughters to 
 boast for me about how active I am for 
 my years, and they boast about it as 
 if the fair health I enjoy was some vir 
 tue of their own. Perhaps the good 
 care they take of me is the reason for 
 my being so well, but down in the bot 
 tom of my heart is the conviction that, 
 had I followed all their advice, and led 
 the packed - in - cotton - wool existence 
 they have marked out for me, and sent 
 143 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 for the doctor as often as they have 
 wanted me to, I should be a bedridden 
 old hypochondriac at this moment in 
 stead of being so ready and willing to 
 do my share of work. 
 
 I sat down obediently, however, and 
 picked up a magazine that was lying 
 near by ; and under pretense of reading 
 I reviewed the last two days, quite dis 
 passionately and soberly. I had come 
 forth from the quiet Land of Old Age. 
 For a moment, in the stress of interest 
 for those poor homeless people, I had 
 forgotten that Margaret and her Com 
 mittee of Ways and Means and I were 
 not contemporaries. I had had sugges 
 tions to give, and I had been ready and 
 strong to lend a hand where a hand was 
 needed. I had forgotten, I say, that I 
 
 am what people call " old," and now as 
 144 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 I eat idle in the shade I remembered, 
 and all at once I felt rather tired and 
 strangely aloof from the things that 
 were going on around me. 
 
 Through no one s fault except my 
 own I had been thwarted and my own 
 ideas taken from me. My fault was the 
 irreparable one of belonging to the 
 generation of those whose business it 
 is to sit comfortable in the shade and 
 wait who can say for what? Just 
 then my little grandchild Edith came 
 up to me, and, without asking, took my 
 magazine from my hand to look at the 
 pictures, and it occurred to me that those 
 older children who had taken my work 
 from me without asking, either 
 had done it as serenely unconscious 
 as Edith was that I might want the 
 
 work for myself. 
 
 145 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 And was n t I a still older child my 
 self ? Need I sit and sulk because the 
 other children would n t let me play at 
 their game V They could play it better 
 without me, they did n t need me, 
 thought I, with the best philosophy in 
 the world, and all the time I wanted 
 to be playing with them, for in my play 
 I would forget for a little while that I 
 was n t, after all, their age. I think that 
 our dear children who look after us so 
 well and see that we don t tire our 
 selves, and scold us gently when we 
 sit in drafts, we " spry old ladies," 
 forget, in the care of our ailing 
 bodies, that it is better sometimes for 
 the body to be tired, if the spirit is n t. 
 It is good for us to take what part we 
 may in the affairs of life. The Land of 
 
 Old Age is n t, as our children think, 
 146 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 just a place for people to coddle them 
 selves in. When I got so far in my 
 thought, two more of my grandchildren 
 ran up to me. They had been sent home 
 from the town hall. It seems they had 
 been in the way. 
 
 "Well," thought I, "here we are, 
 too old and too young. We can play 
 together if neither of us can play with 
 the big children." 
 
 It came over me that perhaps it was 
 just as well that we were n t all of us 
 hurrying and working, and that at the 
 day s end there should be some one not 
 too tired. Just then there turned in at 
 the gate a friend of mine. Though she 
 is still in her twenties, she and I are the 
 best of friends. Her pleasant face was 
 lined with care, and she looked worried 
 and tired. 
 
 147 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " Dear child, what is the matter ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 "It s that the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution and the Woman s 
 Village Improvement Society each want 
 to decorate the hall, and they re quar 
 reling, and nothing s getting done," 
 she said, and burst into tears. 
 
 I patted her head and wiped her tears 
 off, and we made some iced tea, and I 
 sent her off at last quite cheered up. 
 
 " I had to come dow r n and get out of 
 it for a minute. It was so nice of you 
 to be sitting there so cool and rested," 
 she added enviously. 
 
 Then one by one my tired, over 
 worked children came home to me. 
 "Without knowing what they did, they 
 turned to me for comfort and for rest, 
 
 and I took care of them and smoothed 
 
 148 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 out their difficulties, and laughed with 
 them and sympathized with them. They 
 seemed very young to me, my big chil 
 dren, and I realized that they turned to 
 me as they always had, and that I still 
 had things to give them and things to 
 do for them. What if my body must be 
 quiet ? It seemed to me that night that 
 I gave them their supper and put them 
 to bed as I had done so many times 
 when they were small, for there are 
 blessed moments in all mothers lives 
 when their grown children seem again 
 little children. They had come to me in 
 the quiet land I live in to be rested, as 
 every one in the world turns to that 
 land of peace, as all busy, hurried work 
 ers and tired mothers turn into these 
 still, quiet roads. 
 
 There we sit, we older men and wo- 
 149 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 men, waiting for our children to come 
 to us. They find us there ready to tell 
 them how little their little troubles 
 mean, for in our country the perspec 
 tives are long, and we look down long 
 vistas on the road of years. In their 
 great troubles we can say, " I know, I 
 understand," for we have worked and 
 have seen all the things our children 
 must see. And if now and then the 
 world of work calls to us, and if for a 
 moment we like to pretend that the de 
 tails of the hour are important, let us 
 go out at will, and play at work, for in 
 our hearts we know that we live in the 
 Land of Old Age. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 GRANDMOTHERS AND GRANDCHILDREN 
 
 THE human beings that are closest to 
 the Land of Old Age are the children. 
 In so many ways their limitations are 
 ours. Margaret has to apply the same 
 " Thou shalt nots " to Betty that she 
 does to me. For instance, I had planned 
 to go over for a game of backgammon 
 with an old friend of mine, Eliza Storrs, 
 and had n t paid much attention to the 
 weather ; neither had my little grand 
 daughter Betty; so each of us was 
 making her preparations briskly when 
 Margaret nipped us both in the bud. 
 Betty was easy enough to nip. All 
 Margaret had to do with her was to tell 
 her quite openly and frankly that to- 
 151 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 day was a nasty day, quite unsuitable 
 for a little girl to be abroad in. It was 
 a different story with me. I was a child 
 of a larger growth, headstrong, and 
 hard to manage, so my daughter ap 
 proached me with tact, as one must 
 children of my sort. She opened fire 
 craftily in this wise : 
 
 "Wasn t it awful about poor Mrs. 
 Allen s hip?" said she. " I hear she is n t 
 getting on at all." (Mrs. Allen fell the 
 other day on a slippery pavement and 
 broke her hip.) " Her daughter begged 
 and begged her to take a carriage, but 
 she wouldn t," my guileful daughter 
 continued. " Imagine her feelings when 
 her mother was brought home. They 
 say she will always have to walk with a 
 crutch." 
 
 Now a great many more people of 
 152 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 Margaret s age get hurt every year 
 than women of mine, but I did n t feel 
 like arguing the point. 
 
 " It was just such a day. I suppose 
 it s silly of me, but every time you go 
 out in bad weather since then " says 
 Margaret, coming to the point. 
 
 " Is it bad underfoot? " I asked. 
 
 " Awful ! " Margaret replied fer 
 vently. " People fairly skate along." 
 
 " I won t go, then," I decided. 
 
 I must say that while I see through 
 Margaret s guile, I like to be given the 
 semblance of choice, and so I suppose 
 does the child who is hard to manage. 
 
 I heard Betty asking if she could n t 
 have some little girls to play with her, 
 and Margaret answer that she doubted 
 if other mothers would let their chil 
 dren out, so I called Betty up to me. 
 153 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 In ten minutes we had both forgotten 
 the weather and everything else; we 
 might have been the same age, so much 
 we enjoyed each other s society. 
 
 The front door slammed, and out 
 popped Margaret into the leg-breaking 
 weather. 
 
 "She won t let us go out, but she 
 goes out herself, I notice," observed 
 Betty, with pessimism. 
 
 I did notice, and I noticed what Betty 
 did n t, that she and I were housebound 
 for exactly the same reasons, since 
 neither of us had seemed to have judg 
 ment to stay in of her own accord, Mar 
 garet, being anxious about our health, 
 had kept us in. 
 
 Nor was this the only place that 
 Betty and I met on common ground; 
 each one of us was dependent, each 
 154 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 one of us a source of anxiety to those 
 nearest us, each one of us ministered to 
 with the same touching devotion. Like 
 Betty, I had my moments of rebellion, 
 and my efforts for liberty were as futile 
 as hers, more futile, indeed, for each 
 year that passed brought with it new 
 reasons for the reasonableness of my 
 children s tender tyranny. I suppose it 
 is because we are so alike that the sym 
 pathy between old people and little 
 children is as old as the world. As I 
 sat telling stories to Betty, I could but 
 think how, all the world over, there were 
 grandparents rejoicing in their grand 
 children, tending them, playing with 
 them, teaching them the old baby games 
 that go back to the beginning of time. 
 Very often I echo in different words 
 
 some observation of Betty s, the ig- 
 155 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 norance of childhood and the wisdom 
 of age touch each other at more points 
 than one. Many of the occupations and 
 preoccupations of " grown people " like 
 Margaret seem equally profitless to 
 Betty and to me. We are both so far 
 away from the rush of events that the 
 passions and ambitions of the world 
 trouble neither of us. I have forgotten 
 about them, and Betty hasn t found 
 them out, we are on an equal footing 
 of indifference. Even the faults of the 
 grandparents and grandchildren are 
 alike; some of us are as self-centred 
 as children, and others of us have the 
 same na ive egotism. 
 
 There is a certain exquisite flattery 
 in our grandchildren s company. Betty 
 loves everything I do. I seem to her 
 
 witty, accomplished, and gifted. More 
 156 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 than this, she treats me as an equal. 
 She is ignorant of drafts; she is not 
 afraid all the time that I am going to 
 tire myself out. In a word, she does n t 
 know that when she comes to see me 
 she comes into the Land of Old Age. 
 She does n t know that it s because I 
 am old that I have all the time there is, 
 while her mother has to " make time " 
 for her. For all Betty does for me I 
 try to repay her by indulgences of all 
 sorts, sometimes by forbidden indul 
 gences. For these I get mildly scolded, 
 but I keep right on. I have yet to hear 
 of a boy who grew up a bad man be 
 cause of the little indulgences his grand 
 father showered on him, nor of one 
 who grew up a dyspeptic because of the 
 surreptitious cookies his grandmother 
 gave him. I am sure I am no worse 
 157 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a woman because my grandmother 
 begged me off from some well-merited 
 punishments. So I spoil my grandchil 
 dren as much as I can, which is as 
 much as I am let. 
 
 There was a time when I was n t al 
 lowed to spoil them at all. I hardly 
 knew my older grandchildren as babies, 
 for I went through, like so many other 
 women of my generation, what I call 
 " The Grandmother s Tragedy." 
 
 I first heard about it from Eliza 
 Storrs. How often of late years I have 
 had occasion to think of the morning 
 she plumped herself down in my rock 
 ing-chair. I can remember just how the 
 corners of her pleasant mouth were 
 drawn down, and in what a discour 
 aged way she flapped her fan back and 
 forth. 
 
 158 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 " It s awfully hard work learning 
 how to be a grandmother/ she com 
 plained. 
 
 " Well," thought I complacently, " if 
 there s one thing I shan t have to learn, 
 it s that. People may have to learn how 
 to be mothers, but not how to be grand 
 mothers." 
 
 I was very sure of my ground be 
 cause I had just that minute, you might 
 say, got to be a grandmother myself; 
 my arms were aching for my little 
 grandson, whom I had never seen, my 
 oldest son s first child. I was so full of 
 the grandmother feeling, so eager for 
 sight of the blessed little fellow, that I 
 could n t believe the woman of my age 
 existed who was n t a ready-made, ac 
 complished grandmother. 
 
 "It s easy enough to be the kind 
 159 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of grandmother you think you ought 
 to, but what s hard is to be the kind 
 of grandmother they want you to be," 
 Eliza explained, flapping her fan 
 mournfully. 
 
 I hadn t the least idea then what 
 Eliza was talking about, so I was n t a 
 bit sympathetic. I wanted, indeed, to 
 laugh, she looked so much like a fat, 
 elderly baby herself. 
 
 At that moment a neat nurse in a cap 
 passed the house pushing a perambula 
 tor briskly before her. 
 
 "There she is! That s the nurse!" 
 Eliza exclaimed. " They call her a 
 trained hospital nurse. She gets twenty- 
 five dollars a month and her washing 
 done, and if I d had as big a family as 
 Solomon I could n t begin to pretend to 
 
 know one half as much about babies as 
 160 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 that woman thinks she does who s never 
 had so much as half a one ! If I had my 
 way, oh, how quickly I d send her fly 
 ing!" 
 
 It was my first glimpse of a condition 
 of affairs I did n t know existed. 
 
 Eliza rose to go, and sent back to me 
 over her shoulder, 
 
 " Mark my words, that baby s head 
 will be flat as a pancake if they don t 
 take her up more ! " 
 
 I understood everything Eliza said 
 soon enough. In a few weeks Ellery 
 and Jane, the baby and the nurse, came 
 home for a visit. That was when I 
 learned first-hand about " The Grand 
 mother s Tragedy." I think all grand 
 mothers will agree that there is a cer 
 tain emotion at the sight of your first 
 
 grandchild that is a little different from 
 161 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 any other. Your son who was your baby 
 only yesterday has a little son of his 
 own. 
 
 I felt as other grandmothers do, 
 that it was a pretty heavy responsibility 
 for my son and that inexperienced little 
 thing, his wife, to undertake, and I 
 guessed that they probably were as gay 
 and light-hearted about it as I was my 
 self before my own children showed me 
 what a grave thing it was to be a mo 
 ther. 
 
 "Never mind," thought I, " Pm here, 
 fortunately enough for them ! " I was 
 ready to pour out on them the treasures 
 of my own experience. But more than 
 my desire to help them, stronger than 
 any wish I have known for years, was 
 my longing to hold in my arms my 
 
 blessed grandbaby, it was so long 
 162 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 since I had held a baby of my very own. 
 Yet, at the same time, it seemed almost 
 a joke that I really was old enough, so 
 soon, to have grandchildren. I thought 
 in my ignorance that being a grandmo 
 ther meant all the pleasure of having 
 children and none of the care. So I 
 planned and dreamed. Then came the 
 reality and with it " The Grandmother s 
 Tragedy." 
 
 I found out, as Eliza Storrs found 
 out, and as so many women of my gen 
 eration have found out, that I wasn t 
 to have anything, neither pleasure nor 
 responsibility. My empty, expectant 
 arms were to remain empty. Jane s 
 idea and the nurse s idea of a grand 
 mother were negative ; indeed, a grand 
 mother was something to be guarded 
 
 against. There was no room for a 
 163 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 grandmother in the routine of Koger s 
 little life. So I remained an outsider, 
 a spectator, and a spectator who was 
 watched to see that she didn t make 
 herself intrusive, did n t, with her im 
 portunate affection, make an inroad on 
 the rules laid down for the baby. 
 
 I m afraid I took it a little hard. It was 
 such a disappointing way of setting out 
 on one s career of grandparent, so dif 
 ferent from that I had looked forward 
 to with such eagerness. There is some 
 thing so heartbreaking in feeling full 
 of love, and then having your affec 
 tion set aside gently but definitely as 
 something nobody wanted. Besides 
 that, I worried about the baby. How 
 many times during those three weeks 
 I echoed Eliza Storrs, "Mark my 
 
 words, that child s head will be as flat 
 164 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 as a pancake." I longed to take him up, 
 but actually did n t dare, though he was 
 my own grandchild ! While Jane was 
 perfectly polite about it, she was as ner 
 vous as any old hen when I was near the 
 baby. The reason she gave for leaving 
 him on his back hours at a time was that 
 it made a child nervous to be disturbed, 
 and that a child, anyway, was not a 
 plaything. 
 
 " Perhaps," Ellery suggested once, 
 " he likes to be played with." 
 
 " We should n t consider what a child 
 likes," Jane remonstrated, and I was 
 sure she was quoting from a medical 
 book. " We should only think what is 
 for his good ! " 
 
 So, though Roger would crow at me 
 in the most beguiling way, Jane or the 
 
 nurse was always on hand to see that 
 165 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 we never had a word in private to 
 gether. 
 
 It was hard work learning to be that 
 kind of a grandmother ; to my way of 
 thinking it was being no grandmother 
 at all. But the time came when I proved 
 my right to love Koger in my own way. 
 The nurse was off for an afternoon, 
 and the baby began to cry. At first a 
 little whimper, then a good loud roar. 
 From the first moment it was evident 
 to me he had an attack of colic. Jane 
 did n t go to him at once, but continued 
 to sew calmly. Presently she moved him 
 over on his side and gave him a little 
 cold water, but he kept on yelling, of 
 course. Jane got up and walked the 
 floor. Then, before my very eyes, she 
 got down a book about babies, and read 
 
 in it what to do ; I would n t have be- 
 166 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 lieved it if I had n t seen it for myself. 
 She did n t find the right place, or else 
 she could n t put her mind on it, for at 
 last she wailed out: 
 
 " Oh, what do you think is the matter ? 
 Oh, what do you think I ought to do ? " 
 
 " I think you had better take him up, 
 Jane," I said gently. I was very sorry 
 for Jane ; her outside shell of assurance 
 and know - it - all was, after all, only a 
 mask behind which a poor, inexperi 
 enced little mother lurked trembling. 
 " Take him up and lay him on his 
 stomach over a hot-water bottle. He s 
 got a little attack of colic." 
 
 " Thank God ! " said Jane. " I thought 
 he might be going to have a convul 
 sion!" 
 
 She was pale as a sheet, so I did it for 
 
 her. I whisked him up, and comforted 
 167 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 him just as if it had been only yester 
 day I had had my babies to look af 
 ter. Jane watched me respectfully. She 
 always lifted Roger warily as if she 
 were afraid he would break. After that, 
 discipline was relaxed. I had come into 
 my own. 
 
 Hard as I thought my first experi 
 ence was, I have learned since that it is 
 nothing to the humiliation some grand 
 mothers have undergone. I have heard 
 of some who have been treated as if 
 they were contagious diseases, and by 
 their own daughters ! I hope there are 
 not many such ; it is too sad a way of 
 being cheated out of one s birthright. 
 There would be fewer young mothers, 
 I think, who mistook colic for convul 
 sions, and looked up in books what it 
 
 was their babies were crying about, if 
 
 168 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 the younger generation had n t such a 
 contempt for our old - fashioned ways. 
 Germs are at the bottom of that con 
 tempt, though young mothers are learn 
 ing daily that there is more to being a 
 mother than in having the bottles well 
 sterilized. 
 
 I for one protest against the " Thou 
 shalt nots" that are written down for 
 grandmothers. They will, of course, 
 pass the way of many of the other use 
 less " Thou shalt nots." But what good 
 will that do my generation ? We shall 
 have been defrauded of some of our 
 rights as grandmothers, and our grand 
 children will have been defrauded with 
 us. There are some things I hold to be 
 the right of all children from the very 
 moment they are born, and one is the 
 right of being spoiled by their grand- 
 169 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 parents ; hand in hand with that goes 
 the right of a grandmother to spoil 
 them. 
 
 Age lops off our interest in one thing, 
 then another. Year by year absence and 
 death thin the number of our friends. 
 Be our children never so devoted and 
 loving, there always have been and there 
 always will be days that have long arid 
 places in them for people who have 
 traveled far in the Land of Old Age. 
 It is no one s fault. It is a part of life, 
 no more to be complained of than the 
 loss of the suppleness of youth. The 
 Land of Old Age has sparsely peopled 
 districts. Shadows move about under 
 the shade of trees ; they are the shadows 
 of the people we used to love. Some 
 times as we sit dozing in its tranquillity 
 
 we hear sounds of footsteps that make 
 170 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 our hearts beat ; the sound of dear voices 
 comes to us, and then we wake up; they 
 are only the dear echoes from the past, 
 the reflections of the things that were. 
 "We know that never this side of the 
 Great Silence shall we hear them with 
 our waking ears. 
 
 Then to us, sitting lonely and silent, 
 come the voices of little children ; living 
 children, and not shadows that vanish 
 if we dare to look at them full in the 
 face. They are our children s children, 
 and all at once the silent country wakes 
 up to life. We know now why the Land 
 of Old Age is so still and empty. It is 
 so that the children may find plenty of 
 room there to play. To me, in all the 
 Land of Old Age there is no dearer 
 sight than those old people you see with 
 
 little children around them. Sometimes 
 171 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 it is an old man taking his little grand 
 daughter out to feed the hens, or again 
 an old woman sitting happily, a little 
 sleeping child in her arms. Do not dis 
 turb her, for she had gone back years 
 and years, back to her own youth, and 
 she is dreaming that she has her own 
 baby in her arms. 
 
 In the Land of Old Age how many 
 songs are sung every day to little chil 
 dren by lips that had forgotten how to 
 sing, for, oh, so many years! There 
 comes trooping to you a gay little pro 
 cession of stories and games ; they 
 stand around you clamoring to be told 
 and sung and played for your grand 
 children. They talk about children being 
 spoiled nowadays, what with mechan 
 ical toys and all ; I am sure that it is 
 
 in the homes where there are no grand- 
 172 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 mothers to cut paper dolls or teach how 
 to make reins on a spool-and-pin knit 
 ting-machine. My little grandsons push 
 spools around the room, playing they 
 are automobiles, instead of cliu-chu cars. 
 Only last week I was called upon to 
 make equipment for so recent a thing 
 as the Spanish War. My boys fought 
 the British, but I made the paper hats 
 of just the same pattern for both gener 
 ations ; the swords which I forged were 
 of two pieces of wood craftily tied to 
 gether by string. My grandfather taught 
 me how when I was a little girl. 
 
 One day soon after I had won my 
 right to be a grandmother, I was sitting 
 with Eoger in my lap, singing him one 
 of the baby things one croons without 
 knowing what it is. 
 
 All at once I began to listen to my- 
 173 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 self sing, with a certain surprise, as if 
 to some one else, and these were the 
 foolish words I sang : 
 
 " The craw and the poosie-o ! 
 The craw and the poosie-o ! 
 The muckle cat got up an graat 
 On the top of Grannie s hoosie-o." 
 
 I had n t thought of it for years, not 
 since I sang it to my own babies. My 
 mother had sung it to me, and her 
 mother to her, because back, who knows 
 how long ago, we had a Scottish grand 
 mother. Now all the memory of her 
 that there is, is this old nursery 
 rhyme, which has survived mysteriously 
 through the changing generations. I 
 smiled with a certain triumph to think 
 that the women of our family would 
 sing " The craw and the poosie-o " to 
 their babies when all Jane s "Thou 
 shalt nots " had been forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 YOUNG PEOPLE AND OLD 
 
 THE mothers of the little children do 
 well to let them stay with their grand 
 parents while they will, for soon enough 
 they grow up. 
 
 There are always the ghosts of little 
 children near older people, which teach 
 them to understand the hearts of those 
 other little children whom they meet 
 in the real world. The grown-up chil 
 dren are so much harder to understand. 
 They fill me with such a sense of igno 
 rance, for they know so many things 
 which I once knew and have forgotten. 
 Indeed, almost the whole tissue of their 
 lives is made up of these things. 
 
 I do not know why I remember my 
 175 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 girlhood so little, but I find that I am 
 not alone in this. When I pin down my 
 contemporaries, they have the same 
 lapses of memory that I have myself. 
 Perhaps it is because the serious things 
 of life overshadow this time; marriage 
 and children follow so closely on the 
 heels of girlhood; one discovers so 
 soon that so many of the things one 
 has learned and almost all one has 
 thought and dreamed have no place in 
 the real world. So little, indeed, do I 
 remember of this part of my life that 
 I sometimes feel as if I had been mar 
 ried ever since I was a child in short 
 dresses. 
 
 I find as I turn over the pages of the 
 past and so many of them are oblit 
 erated or contain only stray sentences 
 
 of unrelated stories that I can re- 
 176 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 member more about the way I felt when 
 I was a very little girl than when I was 
 a big one. Of the things that happened 
 when I was at the young-lady age I 
 remember so little : a dress, a party, a 
 few faces, a confession of some fault 
 that I was afraid to make to my mother. 
 And when I finally came to her, after 
 losing sleep, she took what I had to 
 tell her and I don t remember what 
 it was in a very disappointing, com 
 mon-place way. 
 
 " "Well, well," said she, " I suppose 
 every girl is bound to make a fool of 
 herself first or last, and I ought n t to 
 expect you 11 escape, my dear. Let s 
 not discuss it further ! " 
 
 I think my mother prolonged her 
 life by refusing to discuss unpleasant 
 
 things further. 
 
 177 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP 
 
 Lately I have often run through these 
 especial pages of my life, because it is 
 only recently that I have realized what 
 a gulf separates us older people from 
 the younger ones. Perhaps all older 
 women do not feel as I do, or perhaps 
 they do not think about it at all, and im 
 agine contentedly, as I did before Ger 
 trude came on a visit, that because they 
 love young people they know all about 
 them. 
 
 Gertrude is my great-niece; she is 
 spending her Easter vacation with us, 
 and she is a sophomore in college. She 
 is pretty, as are her charming clothes ; 
 she looks one straight in the eyes when 
 she talks, hers are clear gray and 
 have as much expression as those of a 
 robin; and though it is plain to be seen 
 that none of the things which make a 
 178 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 woman of one have touched her, she 
 has a calm assurance of bearing that 
 comes from perfect health. Health, in 
 deed, shines out of her; her vitality 
 seems a force, and an almost overpow 
 ering one. In her presence I feel my 
 self small and shrunken of body. She 
 is the kind of capable modern girl who 
 knows how to make a parent mind, and 
 so compelling a quality is the serene 
 assurance of youth that I felt, as I sat 
 there beside Eliza Storrs, that, had 
 Gertrude been my daughter, I would 
 never have dared to face her with that 
 last year s plumage on my hat. 
 
 My own children and I have grown 
 up I had almost said grown old 
 together, and Margaret, while she may 
 scold me about my hat, will under 
 stand; but to Gertrude it will seem 
 179 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 mere wanton dowdiness, a sign of age 
 something akin to the losing of one s 
 faculties. This is because we have no 
 means of communication, as I found 
 out, to my surprise, when Gertrude 
 first arrived. 
 
 " How is your dear mother ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 Gertrude told me, and then said that 
 they were all so glad at home that my 
 health was so much better than it had 
 been the winter before. I asked her 
 next how she liked college, and she re 
 plied she found it " broadening," and 
 then I asked her what her studies were. 
 I saw a little shadow of amusement 
 cross her face ; and though she an 
 swered me with polite exactness, I 
 realized with chagrin that I had made 
 
 a mistake. I felt intellectually all el- 
 
 180 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 bows and feet, they do not call them 
 " studies " any more ; young women 
 of Gertrude s age speak about their 
 " work " instead. 
 
 I find, as we grow old, we often re 
 peat the experiences of our youth. As 
 the world runs from me and I become 
 less sure of my ground, I now and then 
 have moments of extreme embarrass 
 ment in the presence of younger peo 
 ple when my memory slips a cog, for 
 instance, or when I find I have repeated 
 the same thing twice that is like no 
 thing I have felt since when, as a little 
 girl, I did things that made me long 
 for the kindly earth to open and swal 
 low me. The only difference is that now 
 I can laugh off my mortification, and 
 then I used to wash it away with tears. 
 
 After I had asked Gertrude about 
 181 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 her studies and she had answered, we 
 seemed to have finished definitely and 
 for all time everything we had to say 
 to each other. "We looked at each other 
 kindly, even with a certain affection, 
 but, nevertheless, conversation lan 
 guished and died. 
 
 " Gertrude is a lovely girl, is n t 
 she ? " Margaret said to me later. 
 " And so responsive ! " I had heard 
 the two chattering away like a couple 
 of magpies. 
 
 "Gertrude and I don t speak the 
 same language," I answered, " though 
 we re both tolerably proficient in the 
 English tongue when we re not to 
 gether." 
 
 " Not many young girls come to the 
 house ; perhaps that s the reason," sug 
 gested Margaret. 
 
 182 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 " I m sure," I replied, " I see a great 
 deal of young people." For, you see, I 
 thought it was all Gertrude s fault. 
 
 " A great deal of young people about 
 thirty," said Margaret. 
 
 As I thought of my young friends, 
 I found that Margaret was right; that 
 while I had been asleep one night all 
 my little girls that I was so proud of 
 keeping in touch with had grown to be 
 women " about thirty." 
 
 Since Gertrude came there have been 
 plenty of real young people around the 
 house. Margaret made a tea for her 
 right away, and I had a chance to see 
 the young people of my town, many 
 of whom I am ready to take my oath 
 were babies no later than day before 
 yesterday, and I confess I still thought 
 
 of them as babies. It is a long time 
 183 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 since I have recognized all the girls 
 who bow to me on the street, for I am 
 absent-minded, anyway. Now I am be 
 ginning to place a few of them. The 
 pretty girl with curls is Laura Dickin 
 son. I remember her at ten as an ac 
 tive pair of dividers careering over the 
 earth s surface ; I never saw a child 
 with such thin, lively legs. The young 
 man who pays Gertrude especial court 
 is John Baker. I remember very well 
 going to see him four days after he 
 was born. He was Sarah Baker s first 
 grandchild, and she was inordinately 
 proud of him. After that, the last defi 
 nite recollection I have of him is the 
 time, when, at the age of five, he broke 
 my china jar and yelled loudly with de 
 spair over what he had done. As they 
 
 were named to me there was not one I 
 184 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 did not recall as a baby, and very few 
 that I had n t taken for their older 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 How had they accomplished the pro 
 cess of growing up so fast, and where 
 had they been when they were about 
 it? That was the first thing that struck 
 me. The next was how venerable I 
 seemed to them. I am, as I have had 
 occasion to mention before, what the 
 people around here term a "mighty 
 spry old lady," and noways infirm; but 
 these children cannot remember a day 
 when I was not old; they do not go 
 back to the time when my hair was not 
 already gray, and they give me the re 
 spect due to age. No one need tell me 
 that among well-born young people the 
 respect for the old is dead. These dear 
 children fairly bristle with respect for 
 185 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 me. If I come into the room where 
 they are, they are full of charming little 
 attentions in the way of easy -chairs, 
 cushions, and footstools. Personally, I 
 dislike soft-padded chairs. I was taught 
 to sit upright as a girl, and I still sit 
 BO, my backbone being as strong as 
 ever. I am never more uncomfortable 
 than when I have several cushions 
 tucked about me, but often of late 
 years I have had to sit arranged in 
 this modern way or seem ungracious. If 
 women of Margaret s age frequently 
 force sofa pillows on me, those of Ger 
 trude s can hardly wait to say " good- 
 afternoon " before they pop one behind 
 me; old ladies and sofa cushions are in 
 their minds inseparable. 
 
 The other day my old friend Eliza 
 
 Storrs and I were coming home to- 
 186 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 gether in the electrics from Standish. 
 We had been on quite a jaunt together; 
 in fact, we had been to help each other 
 buy our new bonnets. We had had a 
 good time doing it, and came home 
 with that feeling of guilty triumph that 
 sweetened the disapproval which we 
 knew was before us. 
 
 " I suppose," Eliza admitted to me, 
 " that I shall never hear the last of it. 
 But? she added, with brisk decision 
 that was a sort of dress rehearsal of 
 the tone in which she would later say 
 the same thing to her daughter, "Trnt 
 there s no use talking about it now. 
 I Ve been to Standish and seen about 
 my hat, and I m going again ! " 
 
 Her tone had a triumphant trumpet 
 ing quality to it. The truth of the mat 
 ter was, Eliza had merely had three 
 187 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 new flowers and some foliage put in 
 her last year s bonnet; it had, further 
 more, passed through the ambiguous 
 process known as " freshening up." For 
 my part, while I had indeed bought a 
 new hat, the trimming on my old one 
 being as good as new, I had used it 
 over again. It had been more expen 
 sive in the beginning than I had in 
 tended to get; my daughter Margaret 
 was with me when I got it, and over- 
 persuaded me. So I, by using the last 
 year s trimming and Eliza Storrs her 
 last year s hat, had the feeling deep 
 down in our hearts that we had out 
 witted our wise children, who are al 
 ways trying to make us put more ex 
 pensive things on our backs and heads 
 than there is any need for. I think that 
 
 older women often have the same guilty 
 
 188 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 joy, in spending less on themselves than 
 they should, that young women do in 
 being extravagant. 
 
 So, borne up by the feeling that is 
 as exhilarating for a woman of seventy 
 as for one of twenty-seven, that of 
 having done something she should not, 
 Eliza and I climbed into the electric 
 car as light of foot as our years per 
 mitted. The car was full; we had barely 
 entered it when two young girls, after 
 giving each other a brief glance, sprang 
 to their feet and hustled us into their 
 seats. This kind act was accomplished 
 promptly and thoroughly, and I would 
 not for one moment be so ungracious 
 as to give the impression that I was 
 not grateful, nor would I for a moment 
 undervalue the small kindnesses that 
 
 the young so often shower on the old. 
 189 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 It was not their fault that the laughter 
 died out of our eyes, and that our 
 spirits flagged, and that even the tri 
 umph of having achieved a last year s 
 hat seemed less amusing than it had a 
 moment ago, while our young friends 
 chattered as blithely, swaying to and 
 fro as they held on to the straps, as 
 they had before they gave us our 
 seats. 
 
 You see, Eliza and I had taken a lit 
 tle vacation away from the Land of Old 
 Age, for there is nothing so rejuve 
 nating as playing truant, and our day s 
 excursion had been that, and these 
 young girls who had risen so promptly 
 to give us their seats had led us back 
 to our place in the world. We had for 
 gotten for a moment that we belonged 
 
 to the white-haired company who have 
 190 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 won their right to a perpetual seat in 
 the cars, and however welcome a seat 
 may be, it is not so pleasant always to 
 remember why it is our right. 
 
 I sat there watching them, and at 
 last I asked Eliza: 
 
 "What do you suppose they are 
 talking about ? " 
 
 "Something foolish," Eliza replied, 
 without hesitation. " The way girls go 
 on nowadays ! When I was young, 
 children and young people were sup 
 posed to let their elders do the talk 
 ing, and now it s the young folks who 
 do all the talking. I declare I some 
 times feel as if I never had a chance 
 to speak." 
 
 " Oh, come now, Eliza," said I. "You 
 can t tell me that you ve passed your 
 
 life in a state of dumbness." 
 191 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 For Eliza has done her share of talk 
 ing in this life. 
 
 I have known Eliza since we were 
 schoolgirls together, and I tried to re 
 member any concrete conversation that 
 we had, as girls, in our endless gossip 
 ing together, and I found I could n t. 
 
 Throughout the ride the young girls 
 did n t stop their talk for one moment, 
 and went down the street still chatting, 
 while I tried to piece out from the 
 shreds my memory gave me the fabric 
 of their conversation. 
 
 " Eliza," I said, " does it ever make 
 you feel old when girls hop out of their 
 seats in cars the minute they clap eyes 
 on you ? " 
 
 " Sometimes," Eliza admitted. " But," 
 she added with decision, " it would make 
 
 me feel a great deal older if I had had 
 192 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 to stand on my two feet all the way 
 home from Standish ! " 
 
 But while I might not wish to stand 
 so long, I would gladly do without some 
 of the small attentions by which I am 
 fairly snowed under the moment I come 
 among them. And this is not the only 
 thing that happens when I appear. Con 
 versation stops. They go on talking, to 
 be sure, but I know they are talking 
 with me for an audience, and that they 
 expurgate their talk as they go along, 
 just as older people s talk insensibly 
 changes when a child of twelve joins 
 them; just as I have weeded my talk 
 a hundred times out of respect to the 
 young, these dear children weed their 
 talk from respect to the old. I am 
 aware that they have a very vivid idea 
 
 of what I think the conduct and con- 
 193 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 versation of young people ought to be, 
 and as far as they can they instinctively 
 conform to it when I am around. It 
 is taken for granted not only by these 
 very young people, but by my older 
 young friends my daughter s age, that 
 by virtue of my years I am a conserva 
 tive, and that I am deeply pained by 
 certain phases of modern life. It is true 
 that I should not like to see a woman 
 smoke, and I wish that young girls were 
 less slangy and noisy on the street; but 
 I realize that each generation will have 
 phases which seem unlovely to the older 
 generation. So, while I may have opin 
 ions of my own at variance with those 
 of the present day, I am not as hope 
 lessly conservative as I seem in the 
 presence of Gertrude and her friends. 
 
 I would be glad for the courage to tell 
 194 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 them that I would rather be shocked 
 than have this well-meant little farce 
 played for me, but this I shall never 
 dare, for I shall never know them well 
 enough. 
 
 Perhaps it is the fault of us older 
 women that the young people are so 
 careful of our feelings. It must be that 
 we have ourselves put so much dis 
 tance between us and them. There are 
 some of us who are too eager to tell 
 how well-behaved we were when we 
 were young; who have too much to 
 say about the slovenly ways young peo 
 ple have of standing and sitting, and 
 of their slangy ways of speaking, for 
 us to meet them often on a comfortable 
 footing. "We older women have less 
 criticism for the younger ones than 
 older women had formerly, I think. I 
 195 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 fancy that to-day our attitude is one 
 easier to get on with. I don t believe I 
 hear so much about girls being " giddy " 
 as I used to when I was a young girl. So 
 perhaps by the time Gertrude is an old 
 woman the young people of her day 
 won t be as afraid of saying something 
 she will disapprove of as she is. Still, 
 if she is one of those of us who don t 
 take" everything for granted, she will 
 find the way back to her girlhood a 
 long one. 
 
 One does n t need to reach the Land 
 of Old Age to smile over the things 
 that caused one s despair when one was 
 Gertrude s age ; so it is n t to be won 
 dered at that the dust of years obliter 
 ates all trace of the things we laughed 
 over and cried over so long ago. And 
 
 yet, while I know that the things that 
 196 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 seem important to Gertrude seem un 
 important to me, and will be unimpor 
 tant to her five years from now, by 
 virtue of her youth and health she can 
 make me feel my years. She can set 
 me wondering about the girl I once 
 was, and I sometimes have a vague 
 shame that I remember so little. 
 
 When I look at the young girls chat 
 tering in the street, I can only wonder 
 about what they are talking; I knew 
 once, now I have forgotten, and there 
 is nothing that can make me remember. 
 If Gertrude lived here, we should get 
 to be very good friends, and in spite 
 of the mutual embarrassment we now 
 cause each other, we should find a va 
 riety of things to say to each other, 
 plenty of common ground on which to 
 meet. Then, too, every day Gertrude 
 197 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 would be growing older, she would be 
 coming nearer to my point of view, and 
 srery soon we should come to under 
 stand each other, and I should wake 
 up to find that Gertrude was thirty and 
 married, with a couple of babies. 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 UNSPOKEN WORDS 
 
 As soon as a young girl marries and 
 turns into a mother, then there is that 
 in the hearts of all of us older women 
 which speaks to her, for among the 
 most poignant things in our memories 
 is the love that we bore our little chil 
 dren and the mistakes we made in the 
 rearing of them. 
 
 There is a great pathos to me in the 
 young mothers who try so earnestly to 
 do what is best ; for, however we bring 
 up our children, we are sure to make 
 irreparable mistakes, and as we old 
 people look back over the long road we 
 have traveled, we see that it has been 
 
 watered by the needless tears we have 
 199 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 shed, and worse still, those we have 
 made our children shed because of our 
 needless severities. Whether we were 
 firm or whether we were lenient, we 
 are sure to regret the course we took ; 
 for there is no mother living who at 
 the end of her life would bring up her 
 children over again in the same way, 
 nor one who does not believe in her 
 heart that she could do better a second 
 time. 
 
 We have realized how futile our own 
 theories of " governing children " are, 
 and that there is very little mothers can 
 do for their children besides trying 
 humbly to understand them and to avoid 
 injustices. I don t think it is possible 
 for any mother to do more, but it is 
 possible to do a great deal less. So 
 
 those of us who have gotten to a place 
 
 200 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 where certain parental firmnesses seem 
 tyranny, and certain sorts of discipline 
 cruelty, would be glad to have their 
 daughters learn this before it is too 
 late. 
 
 I remember so vividly a recent strug 
 gle Margaret had with Betty that was 
 so like one of those I had with her. 
 Betty and I were sitting together on 
 the piazza. We were singing. I take solid 
 comfort singing with Betty, for as I grow 
 older I find it very pleasant to have 
 some one in the world who does n t no 
 tice how thin and wavering my notes 
 are, and who likes to listen to my voice, 
 worn as it is. Presently Margaret joined 
 us. 
 
 " Mother," Betty asked, " may I go 
 down to Annie s house " 
 
 " No ; I can t let you go to-day," 
 201 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 interrupted Margaret ; and though she 
 spoke gently, her answer came with such 
 promptness I knew Betty s question 
 was a cue she had been waiting for. 
 
 "Why not?" came Betty s little 
 whine that sad little "Why not?" 
 that every mother of us knows so well. 
 
 "Because you didn t come home 
 when I told you to yesterday." 
 
 " But I told Annie I d come " 
 
 " Well, I tell you you can t," replied 
 my daughter cheerfully. 
 
 You know what happened then, don t 
 you ? There were tears and teasing. 
 Margaret was firm. Betty was persist 
 ent. Margaret told Betty to stop crying 
 and Betty cried the harder. I gathered 
 through her sobs that there was to have 
 been lemonade. As Margaret still re 
 fused, Betty grew defiant. I opened 
 202 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 my mouth to say something, and then 
 decided not to. If all the words, for 
 only one day, which a mother of my 
 generation does n t say to her middle- 
 aged children, were gathered together, 
 they would make instructive read 
 ing. 
 
 At last Margaret led Betty away, 
 saying gently, " Dear, I only keep you 
 in because I must"; and then she 
 ended with a reproachful, " Oh, why 
 do you make me punish you ? " "Which 
 was her way of saying the old " It 
 hurts me more than it does you." 
 
 Soon Margaret came back and sat 
 down by me. We could hear Betty 
 sobbing upstairs. 
 
 " The worst of it is," said Margaret, 
 " she thinks I m unjust." 
 
 We rocked back and forth, and for 
 203 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a while neither of us spoke. Little 
 wandering airs blew the long trailing 
 vine of the creeper to and fro. We 
 presented to the passers-by the same 
 spectacle of peace that Betty and I 
 had a few moments before. But we 
 two knew how changed things were, 
 for the only sound in the world that we 
 heard was that persistent, angry sob 
 bing upstairs. I knew that Margaret s 
 heart was wrung with it, and I suf 
 fered with her, for Margaret is my 
 baby, and very mercifully we cannot 
 suffer for our grandchildren s tears, or 
 any other tears, for that matter, as we 
 do for those of our own children. 
 
 Besides, while I was sorry for Betty, 
 
 and I will tell you privately that my 
 
 sympathies were with her, though I 
 
 wouldn t have confessed it to Marga- 
 
 204 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ret, I was glad to see the little thing 
 show so much spirit. She was protest 
 ing with all her strength against what 
 seemed to her injustice and the abuse 
 of power; and you can feel these 
 things with as great indignation as any 
 one, even though you are not old 
 enough to call them by their names. 
 And so, though I hate to hear a child 
 cry, if it had n t been for Margaret s 
 distressed face, I should have had a 
 certain satisfaction in hearing Betty s 
 indignant roars. 
 
 As a baby Betty was too good. Mar 
 garet brought her up in the modern, 
 cast-iron, systematic way, and her sub 
 dued whimpers of useless protest went 
 to my heart; I used to find myself wish 
 ing she would have a good old-fash 
 ioned fit of crying, with yells that one 
 205 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 could hear across the street. So it was 
 a relief, as Betty grew older, to have 
 her show a normal amount of strong 
 will, although Margaret has been as per 
 plexed as if the nursery clock had up 
 and defied her. I have never dared tell 
 Margaret how I felt about this, for 
 there is nothing that irritates a mother 
 of the present generation more than to 
 have her own mother give her advice 
 concerning the rearing of children, 
 however much experience she may have 
 had. Like most grandmothers of to-day, 
 I have wisely held my tongue, though 
 sometimes it has been hard work not to 
 speak. 
 
 Margaret was learning that while 
 
 you may make rules for a baby, there 
 
 is no set of rules made by man that 
 
 will apply to a child of six, for Betty 
 
 206 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 continued to sob defiantly. At last 
 Margaret said : 
 
 " I have to make her mind, you 
 know." 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " She must learn to keep her prom 
 ises." 
 
 "Of course," I assented. Poor girl, 
 I knew she was making apologies to 
 herself for causing Betty unhappiness. 
 
 " If I had known she cared so 
 much " 
 
 I nodded again. I knew so well what 
 she felt. I also knew what I would do 
 if I were in her place ; because one is a 
 mother is no reason why one should n t 
 retire gracefully from a false position. 
 
 " But now I can t, of course " she 
 concluded firmly. 
 
 Again I outwardly agreed, this 
 
 207 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 is one of the arts one acquires with 
 years, but what I wanted to say 
 was: 
 
 "Why not? "Why can t you give 
 in?" 
 
 One of the tenets of the governing 
 of children is that when you have made 
 a mistake, have given a too heavy pun 
 ishment or imposed a command that is 
 more distasteful than you dreamed it 
 would be, you must persist in the mat 
 ter to the end. We deal this way with 
 our children, little and big, and unrea 
 sonable obstinacy is called "being 
 firm." Why we feel we must act this 
 way, I don t know. I have never known, 
 even when I was most " firm " myself, 
 and I don t believe any one else does. 
 I m sure Margaret did n t. We were 
 
 silent again. 
 
 208 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 " If one could only know what one 
 ought to do. Oh, it s so hard to know 
 what s right ! " sighed my poor daugh 
 ter at last. 
 
 In the past half -hour she had gone 
 over the weary path every mother must 
 travel so often. We mete out to our 
 children what seems like justice, but 
 justice turns its back on us and leaves us 
 stranded with a child who is crying its 
 eyes out because it is unjustly treated. 
 As Margaret said, " It is so hard to 
 know what is right." 
 
 So old women who see their little 
 grandchildren playing about them can 
 not help but think of their own lost 
 babies. Out of the past our little chil 
 dren look at us, and as our eyes meet 
 theirs we falter: 
 
 "My child, I did the best I knew." 
 209 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " Yes, mother." Then, " Mother, 
 do you remember the time you laughed 
 at me, and because I got angry you 
 punished me?" 
 
 You say meekly : 
 
 " I was rude that time, and then un 
 just, dear." 
 
 " Mother, do you remember " 
 
 But you can t bear to listen. You 
 know how many times you didn t do 
 your best; the times you were gentle 
 because you were too cowardly to 
 fight; the times when you punished 
 without understanding; the times when 
 you imposed too heavy penalties for 
 childish faults for, after all, you 
 were no better mother than you were 
 woman; and so you change your boast 
 of having done your best to: 
 
 "My child, I loved you dearly al- 
 210 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ways through your mistakes and 
 through mine." 
 
 That is the most that any mother of 
 us can say. As we grow old, we are 
 very apt to return in spirit to the days 
 when our children were our very own, 
 and wonder we did n t treasure them 
 more. We find out, as we get along in 
 years, that we could have been just as 
 good mothers with fewer tears shed. 
 
 I cannot bear to think how I made 
 Margaret and Helen sleep on little 
 hard nubbins of curl-papers so they 
 might have fluffy curls the next day, 
 curls were the fashion then, and my 
 children had hair as straight as a string. 
 I hate to remember how I forced them 
 to eat the things they didn t want to. 
 I had a long battle with Helen over 
 
 soft-boiled eggs; she would not eat 
 211 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 them. No one was benefited by my 
 persistence, nor could possibly have 
 been, whichever way the battle came 
 out ; it was of no importance either way ; 
 but I made the whole household un 
 comfortable with the conflict. I didn t 
 believe, in those days, in " humoring 
 children about their food." Dear me! 
 How many needless tears I made that 
 child shed, and how unhappy I was 
 over it! I thought eggs were for 
 Helen s good, and I was bound she 
 should eat them. I am glad to remem 
 ber that in the end she won, and I can 
 only look back and wonder at myself 
 for my foolish persistence. 
 
 I sometimes wake up in the night 
 and think over some of the little un- 
 kindnesses I did Margaret, or some 
 
 coveted pleasure I denied my children 
 212 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 because it was too much trouble to let 
 them do as they wanted, and I have 
 the same bitter regret over these things, 
 small though they seemed at the time, 
 that I might have had if I had lost my 
 babies through death instead of losing 
 them only by having them grow up 
 into men and women. Every older 
 woman has a sad little collection of 
 such memories. They are among the 
 few sad things one carries with one to 
 the end of life, for age does not make 
 us forget our injustices towards our 
 little children. We remember them al 
 ways, and time, instead of softening 
 them, makes them grow worse. Inci 
 dents that in youth seemed of little im 
 portance look very much like cruelties 
 when we look at them from the Land 
 
 of Old Age. 
 
 213 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 So I was glad when Margaret could 
 stand it no longer and went upstairs to 
 Betty. As she went into the room, the 
 child burst into a fresh storm of tears. 
 Margaret tried tenderly to calm her ; 
 but it was freedom or nothing for Betty. 
 
 So Margaret said things like : " You 
 know you never get things by crying 
 for them. Betty ! If you speak so to 
 me I shall have to punish you severely ! " 
 
 She came downstairs again with a 
 firm line around her mouth. I knew just 
 how she felt. She had gone into battle, 
 and she intended to fight it out to the 
 end, whether it was good for Betty 
 or not. I looked at Margaret and I 
 felt that time had gone backward, and 
 that Margaret was myself and Betty 
 one of my own children, while I myself 
 
 was some invisible outsider watching 
 214 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 the same old conflict repeat itself. 
 Most older women, as they watch their 
 grown-up children, have this almost 
 uncanny feeling of living over again 
 their own mistakes and blunders. At 
 such times one cannot help an obscure 
 feeling of responsibility, as if somehow 
 it were one s own fault, so much are 
 your daughter s mistakes your very 
 own ; at such times I cannot keep from 
 trying to help, even though I know it 
 is unwise, so I had to say at last : 
 
 " Don t you think you are making a 
 great deal out of a small matter ? " 
 
 It was such a miserable way of wast 
 ing a bit of one s childhood and youth. 
 
 " Disobedience is n t a small matter," 
 replied Margaret shortly. 
 
 " Carelessness is," I suggested. 
 
 " She s a very obstinate child ! " 
 215 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Margaret asserted. By this time she 
 had lost sight of the fact that it was 
 the sense of injustice that made Betty 
 obstinate. 
 
 Then, as I started to say something 
 more : 
 
 " Darling," Margaret interrupted with 
 awful patience, " I ve got to fight this 
 out myself. You re only making it 
 harder for me." 
 
 I had it on my lips to say : " It 
 would be better for you if you allowed 
 your mother to make a suggestion now 
 and then ! " For no one likes to be 
 asked to hold one s tongue, however 
 politely, and above all by one s own 
 child. But as I looked at Margaret s 
 careworn young face, and saw her plod 
 ding along the iron path she called 
 
 duty, in this case, as in so many 
 216 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 others, a path which led nowhere, 
 my little flash of impatience died. 
 
 But my spirit cried out to her though 
 my lips did n t speak : 
 
 "Oh, my dear, it s no matter at all! 
 Don t, don t feel so about it! " 
 
 Then I went away, leaving Margaret 
 making her tragic mountain out of 
 Betty s little molehill of carelessness ; 
 remembering in my young days how 
 warmly I sympathized with a friend 
 of mine whose mother always interfered 
 in the discipline of her little grandson. 
 Whatever he had done, " How happy 
 he was before you disturbed him ! " she 
 would say, reproachfully. 
 
 Now I understand. There are so 
 many sorrows and cares which we 
 must inevitably meet as we journey 
 
 toward age, and so many perplexing 
 217 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 moments in life which we cannot avoid, 
 that we want, oh, so much, that our 
 children might at least be spared and 
 spare themselves the unnecessary wor 
 ries. It is the useless mistakes and need 
 less suffering each generation under 
 goes that we of the older protest against, 
 and for which we now and then break 
 silence, only to learn again the bitter 
 lesson of our uselessness. 
 
CHAPTEK XI 
 
 THE ISOLATED GENERATION 
 
 I COULD N T help Margaret that day in 
 that one little thing any more than I 
 have been able to help my children in 
 the greater crises of life. I could n t 
 even imagine I was helping her; and 
 this is one of the bitterest things we 
 mothers have to bear when we get old. 
 We have learned then that we can t 
 help our children to lead their lives 
 one bit better. There is not one single 
 little stone we can clear from before 
 their feet, be our old fingers ever so 
 willing. With yearning hearts we see 
 them making the mistakes we could 
 teach them to avoid if only they would 
 listen. We see them going through one 
 219 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 experience after another, stumbling 
 here; again hurting themselves against 
 the same corner you hurt yourself 
 against so long ago; repeating all the 
 world-worn mistakes, while we elders 
 watch anxiously and may not even cry 
 out, " Take care ! " Our sons repeat 
 the follies of their fathers; our daugh 
 ters make over again all the mistakes 
 of their mothers. It is very hard to sit 
 in silence when you see them doing all 
 the things that you did and then so 
 painfully learned better. We feel that 
 we could so easily point to the fair 
 open road if our children would let us, 
 but we are as useless to them as guide- 
 posts to the blind. We must watch our 
 children lose themselves in the tangle 
 whose miseries we know so well, and 
 see them at last, after long years of 
 220 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 wandering, find their way back home, 
 heart-sore and worn ; and all the time 
 we can t help thinking it all needn t 
 have been. That, to us older mothers, 
 is the heart-rending part of it. Instead 
 of helping, you must sit quiet and fold 
 your hands, knowing that if you did 
 speak they wouldn t hear you. Your 
 children, however dearly they love you, 
 will think you say what you do only 
 because you are old and have forgot 
 ten, and therefore you cannot possibly 
 understand life as they see and live it. 
 If you run after your children crying, 
 "Oh, my child, don t do this," they 
 won t listen to you, or if they do they 
 smile at you as if you were a child. 
 They are so sure, these young people, 
 they know more about life than you 
 
 do! Or it may very well be that in- 
 221 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 stead of smiling, they have hard work 
 not to show you how impatient they are 
 that you have interfered in something 
 you can t know about. 
 
 The right of free speech with our 
 children is one of the pleasures of life 
 which age often takes from us. "When 
 they are young they listen, they have 
 to then, even if they go away and for 
 get; but as they get older, they don t 
 often let us have the illusion that we 
 are listened to. I have even known 
 some mothers who were not allowed to 
 talk at all about their children s in 
 terests. 
 
 I have never understood the watch 
 ful irritation with which our grown 
 children meet our suggestions concern 
 ing their affairs, for these are the 
 
 things that lie nearest our hearts. Are 
 222 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 they afraid, I wonder, that we will for 
 get they are grown up? I grant it 
 sometimes is hard to act as if one real 
 ized it. 
 
 However this may be, there are very 
 few grown people who can bear advice 
 from their own mothers, even though 
 they listen patiently to all the rest of 
 the world. I remember I had the same 
 curious intolerance for my mother s ad 
 vice, and now I am at a loss to account 
 for my impatience. Did I fancy, I won 
 der, that my problems were so differ 
 ent from those she had solved during 
 her long life? 
 
 There are, after all, few mothers who 
 have grown old in the service of their 
 children who have not some little wis 
 dom ready to give. Some of us have 
 learned a short road to peace; all of 
 223 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 us have learned something that would 
 make life easier for the children we 
 love, but out of the fullness of our 
 knowledge and experience we can give 
 away not so much as a crumb. That 
 evening I almost envied Margaret her 
 trying afternoon; she believed, for the 
 moment anyway, that she was doing 
 her Betty good. 
 
 There is something very touching in 
 the unreasonable expectation each gen 
 eration has for its children. Obedience, 
 cheerfulness, self-control, punctuality, 
 are only a few of the virtues every young 
 mother starts out by expecting of her 
 babies. It only shows the serene self- 
 confidence the young have in making 
 the next generation better than the last. 
 For, mind you, every mother expects 
 
 to do this herself, and it s a happy 
 224 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 time when you still have the illusion of 
 power and still believe you can play 
 Providence for your children, that you 
 can bring them up very much as you 
 choose ; when you still feel that every 
 thing depends on you, and that with 
 your love for them you will be able to 
 defend them, not only from the world 
 but from themselves. And so for a very 
 little while you can. Young mothers in 
 their tender ignorance imagine that 
 this will always be so. 
 
 But very soon your children slip from 
 between your fingers. They develop 
 new traits that you don t understand and 
 others you understand only too well, 
 for like weeds your own faults come up 
 and refuse to be rooted out, and you lie 
 awake nights trying " to know what is 
 
 right," still thinking that your child s 
 225 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 welfare is in your own hand, trying 
 with your own little strength to combat 
 faults that are as old as your race, that 
 are part of you and your mother and 
 her mother before you, and will be part 
 of your children s children. I see my 
 daughters going valiantly to work at 
 this hopeless task, high in courage, full 
 of confidence that their children shall 
 be saved anyway. As they bring their 
 children up, they often talk to me about 
 their own childhood, and very ten 
 derly point out the mistakes I made 
 with them. I smile one of those inward 
 smiles age knows so well, as I gather 
 from their accent, more than from any 
 thing they say, that they hope to avoid 
 all my errors ; and indeed that they 
 think they have avoided a good many 
 
 already* 
 
 226 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 I let them talk. The last time Henry 
 was on a visit we talked of old times 
 and old methods, and especially of the 
 desultory education I gave Margaret. 
 Henry is doing better in this respect, 
 and my older granddaughters are on 
 the road to becoming very learned 
 young ladies. I only hope Henry is 
 taking as much pains to make his girls 
 stand up straight as I did with her. 
 While we compared new educational 
 methods with the faulty old ones, I 
 could n t help saying to my daughter : 
 " All I hope, dear, is that when you Ye 
 m y a g e J ou will have as devoted a set 
 of children." 
 
 For when your children have dis 
 proved all your theories ; when none of 
 your sons have taken up the professions 
 you tried so hard to have them ; when 
 227 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 they have consulted their own wills in 
 everything in life, their affection is the 
 great recompense. If our children really 
 love us and show us that they do, I 
 think we may count that we have won 
 in the game of life, and I would be glad 
 to have my children realize this, and 
 have it help them over the discourage 
 ment of those years after their children 
 have apparently slipped from them al 
 together. 
 
 When I was a young mother I believed, 
 too, that I could be a Providence for 
 my children. I believed they had been 
 given me to mould as I would, and the 
 only limit of the influence I would have 
 was the limit of my own strength and 
 love. Then there came a time when I 
 realized that every child on the street 
 
 my child stopped to talk with had its 
 
 228 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 share in bringing up my sons and 
 daughters. One week in school was 
 enough to upset all the training of years. 
 They learned faster from their friends, 
 and more willingly, than ever they did 
 from me, and it seemed to me then that 
 they learned the things they ought n t 
 to quickest of all. My well-brought-up 
 little boys came from play talking loudly, 
 making faces, play ing the fool. Margaret 
 would come home from a visit with a 
 trunkful of affectations and an assort 
 ment of silly ideas, how silly I knew 
 very well, for I had had those same 
 ideas and thrown them aside myself ; 
 why I didn t get comfort out of the 
 fact that I had outgrown these very 
 things, and that they, too, would in 
 time inevitably outgrow them, I don t 
 
 know. It s a bad moment when one 
 229 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 realizes that the most shallow boy and 
 girl can have an influence over your 
 children greater than your own, and 
 that some thoughtless ridicule from 
 any one your sons admire is able to 
 undo all your patient work. It was when 
 I saw these things that I began to see 
 that my place in my children s lives 
 must be very much less than I had first 
 supposed, but I only redoubled my ef 
 forts. By that time I was past the place 
 when commands and punishments were 
 very much used. I used all my tact 
 and affection and diplomacy to make 
 my children what I wanted them. 
 
 As they grew older still, I found my 
 ideals of what I wanted them modified 
 and changed by what they were. How 
 much I am responsible for what they 
 
 are to-day I am at a loss to decide, but 
 230 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 I do know that the boy next door has 
 always had a more direct and appar 
 ently a stronger influence than I ever 
 had. 
 
 However philosophical I might be, 
 however glibly I talked to myself about 
 " heredity and environment," I felt 
 deep down in my heart that I was re 
 sponsible, and I alone, for what my 
 children were. How many hours I have 
 spent yes, and days and months 
 in wondering just how I had failed. I 
 felt that I was responsible for every 
 one of their faults, that with more wis 
 dom and more courage and more pa 
 tience everything might have been dif 
 ferent. 
 
 I have always envied those women 
 who can say, " Anna gets her obstinacy 
 
 from her father s family," or, " George 
 231 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 has the Crawford temper"; but per 
 haps they too feel, down deep in their 
 hearts, that they are somehow to blame 
 for whatever is wrong. I was already 
 an old woman before I was able to free 
 myself of my part of the burden of re 
 sponsibility, for in the end I realized 
 that, after all, I could n t hold myself 
 accountable for the things that hap 
 pened when they were away from me 
 altogether. But always the torturing 
 question remains with us mothers, "If 
 I had done differently, could I have 
 saved my daughter this unhappiness? 
 If I had been firmer, could n t I have 
 helped my son more? " 
 
 It makes no difference what good 
 children you have or how well they have 
 "turned out"; mothers still ask them 
 selves these questions, so heavily do the 
 232 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 sins of their children weigh on them, 
 even when they are not sins at all. I 
 have always wondered why nothing 
 has ever been said about the sins of 
 the children being visited on the par 
 ents, for if our sins are visited on our 
 children theirs are doubly hard for us 
 to bear. After they have forgotten them 
 we still remember, for we wonder al 
 ways if we might not have prevented 
 them by greater wisdom. 
 
 As one advances farther into the 
 Land of Old Age, one sees more and 
 more how isolated each generation is 
 from the other. We begin, like Marga 
 ret, playing Providence to our children. 
 "We end, like myself, a spectator at the 
 drama of our children s lives. You will 
 not be able to turn the tragedy into a 
 
 comedy. You can only watch it, breath- 
 233 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 less, no more able to stop the march of 
 events than the little boy in the gallery 
 who hisses the villain. If we mothers 
 have helped at all, it is what we are, 
 and not what we have taught, that has 
 counted. Yet, though we older people 
 know there is a gulf of time between 
 our children and us that may not be 
 bridged, we can t help trying to bridge 
 it. 
 
 If you are in the thick of the play of 
 life, look around you and you will see 
 the gray-headed spectators who have 
 themselves stepped off the stage. They 
 are the mothers and fathers of the 
 players, and each one of them is mur 
 muring advice or encouragement to 
 some dear child who never stops to 
 listen. Some cry as they look on, and 
 
 some laugh, and some sit proud and 
 
 234 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 complacent, and in her heart each one 
 of them knows that the words she re 
 peats so often are not heard. But they 
 keep on, for deeper than the knowledge 
 of their own uselessness is the feeling 
 of responsibility. You must bear the 
 sins of your children until you die, just 
 as you have your silent part in their 
 successes. You put them in the world 
 and you feel that you must answer to 
 yourself for what they are. 
 
 Though each generation must work 
 out its own salvation, we mothers can t 
 reconcile ourselves to this knowledge. 
 To our last days many of us go on 
 persisting in the belief that we could 
 help our grown-up children if they 
 would only stop long enough to listen. 
 
 In spite of myself, I believe this. I 
 
 can t help it, and I like to think that 
 235 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 they listen more than either of us 
 knows, and that because they love me 
 so dearly, they hear, after all, the 
 things I don t speak out loud. So at 
 the end of life I can only say to my 
 self what I wanted to say to Marga 
 ret: Each one of us can help her chil 
 dren, she her small ones and I my big 
 ones, only by loving them dearly and 
 trying humbly to understand; for I be 
 lieve that only in this way can one 
 generation come near to the other. 
 
CHAPTEE XII 
 
 LENGTHENING SHADOWS 
 
 I HAVE spoken of us older people 
 as spectators at the play of life, speak 
 ing words of encouragement which 
 were not heard ; and if we speak words 
 that are not heard, so are our ears al 
 most always on the alert to catch the 
 inner meaning of our children s lives, 
 to enter in and understand all the de 
 tails that are kept from us. 
 
 I have a son whom I have seen but 
 few times in many years; he lives in a 
 distant country and can seldom come 
 home. I have pictures of the house in 
 which he lives. Often his face shines 
 out to me familiarly from a strange 
 
 group of people, none of whose faces I 
 237 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 know. Often it will be a little snap 
 shot, and from the looks and gestures 
 arrested in the photograph, I will see 
 that they are friends of his. Once in a 
 while word comes that " this is So-and- 
 So, you know," or that " the lady be 
 side me is Miss This or Miss That," 
 nothing more. I am familiar with all 
 the outer surfaces of his life, as though 
 I had lived out there with him. Every 
 morning and evening when I pray for 
 my children I go, it seems to me, al 
 most bodily out toward him in that 
 inner communion that we must feel 
 when we pray intensely for those whom 
 we love. In all the years of our sepa 
 ration no woman has had a more faith 
 ful child. Week after week his letters 
 come full letters, too ; I follow him in 
 
 his small journeys, in his comings and 
 
 238 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 goings. I hear the old man and wife 
 talk, that have done for him for so 
 long, and to whose quaint picturesque- 
 ness he never becomes accustomed be 
 yond the point of appreciation. I know 
 his tastes and his pleasures and his 
 recreations. I know that materially he 
 is doing well, but of his inner life, of 
 his defeats, of his triumphs, of his tra 
 vail in the stuff of his own character, 
 I know nothing except what any one 
 might know, that he is a good fel 
 low, sweet-tempered, as he always was, 
 and that he has a certain touch of ar 
 rogance, of kind-hearted authority in 
 his air that is not unlike Dudley s. 
 Any one might know this who saw his 
 picture or who heard him spoken of, 
 But he might be going through the 
 
 crisis of his life even, with his spirit 
 239 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 in deep distress, and I am sure he 
 would sit down, from force of habit, 
 and write me one of his chatty and en 
 tertaining letters that make up a part 
 of my life. If he is ill, you may be sure 
 I hear nothing of it until he is better. 
 Since he cannot be with me in body 
 it should be enough for me, I suppose, 
 that he is in spirit with me enough so 
 that he turns to me and gives me so 
 much of his time. Yet it is not enough ; 
 it leaves me hungry. I never read one 
 of his kind and charming letters without 
 wondering: "Is all well with you, my 
 son? Is life kind to you? Are your days 
 lonely ? Does the lack of wife and chil 
 dren press heavily upon you, or is the 
 crust of selfishness settling over you so 
 that you would not sell your small free 
 dom of personal habits for the great 
 240 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 gift of love which wife and children 
 would give you? Is the blight of middle 
 age creeping upon you, swallowing up 
 the generosities of your youth that I 
 knew so well ? Or is your heart hungry 
 for those children that you have never 
 had, and is there some face dear to you 
 beyond all others, so for want of it you 
 must lead your life lonely as you do 
 now ? " These questions have never been 
 answered for me, nor will they be ever. 
 Yet sometimes it seems to me that I 
 know as much of him as I do about those 
 two children who have strayed familiarly 
 through these desultory pages. They, 
 too, are as careful to turn to me the 
 smiling side of their lives as my son so 
 far away from me. 
 
 It is perhaps for this that I feel nearer 
 
 to my son Henry than to any of my 
 241 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 children. He writes me seldom and then 
 only brief communications. My know 
 ledge of his life and comings and goings 
 is through my daughter-in-law, but in 
 the nature of his business he makes me 
 brief and flying visits ; he descends upon 
 us at odd moments, which disturbs Mar 
 garet and Dudley. They try and try to 
 make him telegraph me or write when 
 he is coming. They think his unexpected 
 visits disturb me; I suppose they get 
 this from my trembling eagerness at the 
 times when I am surprised into say 
 ing: "I think Henry is coming to 
 night." 
 
 And very often he comes when I think 
 he is, and then again I am wrong, though 
 I am superstitious enough to believe 
 that he has thought of coming and then 
 
 changed his mind when this strong f eel- 
 242 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ing of his nearness sweeps over me. And 
 when he comes I see him as he is. If he 
 has made a good business deal or if 
 business worries him, he says so, while 
 Dudley and Margaret hover around like 
 two anxious parents, trying to play Prov 
 idence. If they know he is coming, they 
 meet him first with warnings and head- 
 shakings, coaching him what to tell me 
 and what not to tell me ; and for a time he 
 tries to be good, but before he goes, he 
 flings out to me what is worrying or 
 troubling him. To him I speak my mind 
 more than to any one, and preach to him 
 the self-control that he needs. He comes 
 to me as he has always come, for a cer 
 tain sort of strength. I give him balance 
 and smooth him out. I am to him what 
 I am not to any of my other children, 
 
 the mother of younger years ; the mother 
 243 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 to whom to turn for advice and strength, 
 and I leap out to meet it. 
 
 My other children those who see 
 me from day to day tell me that his 
 visits upset me, and so they do. I have 
 been ill and depressed sometimes for 
 two or three days when I have not been 
 able to get him, or when his worry has 
 been a difficult one, as I always was ; 
 as I was when they were ill ; as I was 
 through the difficult phases in the boys 
 developments. 
 
 Tranquillity and peace perhaps pro 
 long life, and yet who knows ? 
 There seems to be before us the ques 
 tion as to whether we shall wear out 
 or rust out, and most of us are praying 
 to fate that we may be allowed to wear 
 out. Yet who can judge ? I know that 
 
 my children s silence, at which I often 
 244 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 chafe, is not best for me, but perhaps 
 it is best for them, since I cannot help 
 them, since my anxiety only heightens 
 theirs. When I see them cloaking their 
 troubles with smiles ; when I feel the 
 atmosphere surcharged with anxiety, 
 and see the cloud lift again, I often 
 think it is perhaps self-preservation 
 that makes them do what they call 
 " spare me " ; that to watch me troubled 
 and broken with anxiety about their 
 worries would be for them a double 
 strain. 
 
 I know when Betty was ill that my 
 trouble though I was tranquil and 
 though I spoke heartening words 
 was an added burden to Margaret. I 
 know that for her there were two sick 
 people in the house ; that I was one, 
 
 ill and suffering spirit for the sick body 
 245 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of her child. And while it seems to me 
 that silence is perhaps the hardest of 
 all to bear, the peace it brings is good 
 for all of us. 
 
 I have said that we should decide 
 whether we should rust out or wear 
 out, but perhaps that was decided for 
 us in our youth and in our middle age, 
 for we are continually deciding all our 
 life long what kind of old people we are 
 to be. Every moment of our lives we are 
 preparing for age ; carving out the 
 faces that we are to wear ; moulding 
 and modeling and casting our characters 
 for good or for bad ; deciding if those 
 last years those dependent years, so 
 full of heartbreak, so full of the giving- 
 up of those things which make life life 
 shall be bearable to those closest to us. 
 
 Some years ago I began observing 
 246 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 the various types of age about me, and 
 it appeared to me in many unlovely 
 guises. Often the women whom life 
 had treated the most gently turned 
 toward life unlovely faces, masks of 
 discontent. I ask myself, Is life so sad 
 that on the faces of age one should so 
 often see such deep prints of ineradicable 
 grief, or is it the habit of discontent, 
 year by year, planting a wrinkle here 
 and drawing down the mouth there ? 
 
 I, who am as yet only what people 
 call elderly, look sometimes with a 
 certain fright at the faces which I see 
 that are old. I see upon the street old 
 men whose faces are carven as though 
 in granite ; the hardness of their own 
 hard hearts is there in every line. Others 
 I see yet more terrible, loose- 
 mouthed and vacant-eyed, speaking of 
 247 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a life of indulgence of the body. They 
 have no thoughts to carry with them to 
 the grave ; no light from the hills makes 
 them lift up their eyes ; they have for 
 gotten the hills if ever they knew them. 
 And the faces of the old women, how 
 vacant are so many of them ; how dis 
 contented! What furrowed brows, 
 penned with sorrow as though their 
 thoughts had become steeped with sad 
 ness until it had become moulded on 
 every line of the face without. "What 
 bitterness again ! And all these things 
 bespeak a feebleness of the spirit. 
 Day by day, as they walk on the road 
 that leads to age, they forge out of 
 life their own masters and the doom of 
 those about them as well. There is 
 something in character that seems to 
 survive even the mind. I often call to 
 248 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 mind the story of Emerson, who, when 
 his mind failed and he could n t think 
 of words and what he wanted to say, 
 waited with a sublime patience, some 
 times waited for the word that would n t 
 come. His own serenity outlived the 
 worn-out tool that had used it for such 
 high purposes. 
 
 I remember from the days of my 
 early middle life an old woman who 
 had become completely childish and 
 rambled around the town in which she 
 lived, a harmless and fantastic figure. 
 Deafness was added to her other in 
 firmities. And yet, as she went along 
 the streets talking to herself, one 
 caught snatches of a mind imperish- 
 ably enwrapped in the kind things of 
 life. 
 
 "What a beautiful child ! " one would 
 249 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 hear her remark. "Oh, the lovely 
 child! . . . What a lovely day ! " 
 
 This poor distraught and maimed 
 spirit saw beauty everywhere. She 
 would stop a stranger on the street to 
 know if she knew the Mrs. Grant with 
 whom she lived. "Such a beautiful 
 woman ! So good, so good ! " 
 
 Of all the lessons that come to me 
 out of my past, the lesson of this crea 
 ture, never a stalwart spirit, but, like 
 her friend, "so good," returns to me 
 the oftenest. She had had a heart that 
 had been a fountain of love to all that 
 came near her; though she had never 
 been a woman of much brains or wisdom, 
 yet her indestructible sweetness sur 
 vived her, and this, it seems to me, is 
 the lesson that age should bring to 
 
 youth continually. 
 
 250 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 " Choose," says Age, " this face so 
 beneficent, so sweet, so kind, or this 
 other, written over and over with the 
 small, mean vices of uncharitableness 
 and littleness." 
 
 This much is to a certain degree in 
 our hands, but what is not in our hands 
 is the final end, the terrible and inevi 
 table breaking-up of the powers of the 
 body; the end that no one can tell if it 
 shall come swiftly and mercifully or 
 with torment for those one loves and 
 for one s self. One can only hope here ; 
 one cannot know. And I suppose it is 
 because of this menace that glides be 
 fore us more and more closely, if we 
 stop to think, that so many older men 
 and women have such impatience at 
 having clipped from them one or any 
 
 of the little things that still make life 
 251 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 the place it was. Every outer sign of 
 age reminds us of this; every new 
 feebleness of the body brings before us 
 vividly the goal to which we are tend 
 ing, not the goal of death, but per 
 haps the goal of the last years of an 
 enfeebled and broken and useless life. 
 I think it is this shadow that chills the 
 hearts of those of us who have brave 
 spirits more than the thought of death. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY 
 
 I REMEMBER very well indeed when I 
 began to hate to look at myself in the 
 glass. That is the turning-point, I 
 hated to look at myself. The women 
 who look in the glass oftenest are not 
 the vainest ones. Where a woman looks 
 in the glass out of vanity once, she 
 looks in the glass twenty times as a 
 matter of criticism, looks to see if 
 her hat is on straight, looks to see if 
 her belt is doing its duty, looks to see 
 if her skirt hangs well. 
 
 There came a time in my life when, 
 while I was no longer young, I had a 
 wholesome middle-aged look. I was no 
 253 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 better looking and no worse than my 
 neighbors, and my children encouraged 
 vanity in me, as one s dear children very 
 often will, by saying the sweet and fa 
 miliar words : "How dear you look to 
 day, mother ! I love to see mother in 
 that dress "; or, admonishing me ;" Mo 
 ther, you really must have a new hat. 
 Look at mother s hat ! " 
 
 The moment comes to every woman 
 when, instead of flushing under the ap 
 proval of some masculine creature, 
 either sweetheart or husband, according 
 to her state of life, she sees herself mir 
 rored in the eyes of her grown-up 
 children. You may be sure that these 
 little children of yours, that you see 
 now growing up around you, will in time 
 pay you more tribute and also give you 
 
 more frank criticism than any one you 
 254 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 have ever known, devoted husband or 
 sweetheart as he may have been. 
 
 I wear certain laces and a certain 
 brooch because my son Dudley cares 
 for them, certain colors because of my 
 daughter Margaret, and I am contin 
 ually in a state of border warfare with 
 them both for trying to make me buy 
 new things which I do not need and 
 that are clear beyond my pocketbook. 
 And my case is the same as that of 
 many an elderly woman of my acquain 
 tance ; we have to fairly fight with our 
 children not to put every penny we 
 possess upon our backs. No young lady 
 just coming out could hear the words 
 from loving relatives that she needs a 
 new dress so often as I do. 
 
 I will come back to what I was say 
 ing, there was a time in my life when 
 255 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 because of the flattery of those I loved 
 and there is no flattery more far- 
 reaching than that I surveyed my 
 middle-aged reflection in the glass with 
 peace of heart. One of my daughters 
 would inform me that she thought I was 
 the prettiest mother in the world ; the 
 blessed part of it is, I think they really 
 believed this was true. Then the day 
 came when I realized that my face was 
 old. I had been out of health, nothing 
 very serious or alarming, but I had lost 
 flesh and had n t been out of doors much, 
 and one day as I turned to meet my re 
 flection it seemed to me that a thousand 
 wrinkles started out at me, that there 
 were lines about my eyes, that my whole 
 face was shrunken. 
 
 People speak of the terrible moment 
 
 it is in a woman s life when she finds 
 256 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 her first wrinkle. I don t believe most 
 normal women find the first wrinkle at 
 all. Very few of us are professional 
 beauties ; the happiness of very few of 
 us consists in our staying in our first 
 flush of looks forever. The average, 
 normal, comfortable woman is too busy 
 looking after her babies and her home 
 about the time the first wrinkle puts in 
 an appearance to even notice it, and, 
 even if she does, to be disturbed, be 
 cause all her contemporaries are no 
 better off than she. The discovery of 
 age is a different thing. I don t know 
 if all women realize from one day to 
 another as I do this creeping on of the 
 hands of Time, but I think there must 
 come a day of definite awakening. I 
 have seen women stricken down with 
 
 some illness and go to bed plump and 
 257 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 middle-aged, and emerge, a few weeks 
 afterwards, from the sick-room, frosted 
 with age. I have seen sorrow rob women 
 of the Indian summer of youth still 
 more often. Generally it comes upon 
 them stealthily like a thief in the night ; 
 you don t know how long it has been 
 coming on, but little by little you find 
 yourself " Old Mrs. So-and-So " instead 
 of "Mrs. So-and-So." 
 
 The first wrinkle when one has chil 
 dren and a loving husband means no 
 thing at all, but this look of age it is the 
 first cold warning of the Valley of the 
 Shadow, it is a sign that one is actually 
 on the road downhill, that the best days 
 of life are over, that the activities that 
 have made life worth living, from now 
 on must slip more and more from one s 
 
 fingers. My heart may feel as young as 
 
 258 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 ever, but what good is that if my knees 
 are rusty and going up and down stairs 
 begins to be a burden, and I find myself 
 tired after a little walk, and I know that 
 never again can I go back, that not one 
 of these wrinkles can vanish with return 
 ing health, that activities once given up 
 have gone from us then forever. 
 
 Small wonder then that I don t like 
 to look at my face, though it is still 
 sweet in the eyes of my children. I don t 
 like, I frankly confess, to be reminded 
 of all that the wrinkles and gray hair 
 imply. There is no vanity in this: I 
 never was enough of a beauty to be vain 
 about my looks, but was always glad 
 that I could be, as my unflattering aunts 
 used to say when I was a little girl, 
 " well enough," and that " I would pass 
 in a crowd." I think, indeed, I am better 
 259 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 looking as an older woman than as a 
 younger one. My features are of the 
 kind that endure, my hair has taken a 
 not unpleasing shade of gray, and yet 
 I turn from this reflection of a not ill- 
 looking elderly woman, not because I 
 mind being older, but because now and 
 then it comes quickly to me to what age 
 and to what goal I am so fast approach 
 ing. The spacious and sunny hours, oc 
 cupations to my liking, and my dear 
 children at hand to smooth the road for 
 me, make life a pleasant place, so I 
 turn my face away. 
 
 Not long ago there was visiting some 
 neighbors of ours an elderly relative. 
 Her hair had not turned gray, but had 
 kept a rather nondescript fluffy blond. 
 She had also retained what is called 
 
 " the figure of a girl." I expect that in 
 260 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 reality she was a fairly angular woman 
 under her successful millinery ; anyway 
 she lacked the comfortable roundness 
 that comes to most women who do not 
 grow thin with advancing years, and 
 for my part I had rather resemble a 
 comfortable armchair than a little spid 
 ery bent-wood affair that looks as if 
 it would blow away in a good strong 
 wind. This woman, however, at a little 
 distance, gave a sad little illusion of 
 youth. As one saw her going down the 
 street, for instance, one would have 
 thought her quite a young person; 
 across the room one would have given 
 her forty-five, forty-five dressed with 
 a certain discreet youthf ulness ; and 
 close at hand she looked very young 
 for her age, very well preserved. This 
 caused a good deal of comment. 
 261 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 "Well," said Margaret, "I m glad 
 you don t look like that, mother ! I think 
 it is absurd for a woman of her age with 
 middle-aged daughters to dress the way 
 she does." 
 
 "Yes," returned one of our neigh 
 bors, " and do you notice her complex 
 ion? It seems to me," went on this 
 young mentor of the aged, "that women 
 don t know how to grow old gracefully 
 the way they used to." 
 
 I said nothing, but my heart went out 
 to this poor lady who was struggling 
 so valiantly to shove back the hands of 
 the clock; and I would like to make 
 here a little plea to you younger people. 
 I know it is considered becoming to do 
 what is called " grow old gracefully "; 
 that is, to face the world with all your 
 
 wrinkles, to have the courage of your 
 262 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 gray hairs, to lay aside your favorite 
 gay colors and put on the dark colors 
 in which people are supposed most 
 suitably to mourn their dead youth; I 
 know that younger people consider that 
 we should be willing and eager even to 
 betray every one of the years we have 
 lived by our actions, by our looks, by 
 our dress, and I do not pretend that 
 this is not the bravest part to take, but 
 here and there we find a coward in this 
 world, and let us not be untender. Who 
 knows what pressure has been brought 
 to bear? It is silly, if you like, it is lack 
 ing in intelligence to try to hide one s 
 age, but what a tragedy it confesses, 
 what a futile and heart-rending struggle ! 
 "When I see women, as I have in the 
 past, with foolish false fronts which 
 did n t match their grizzling back hair, 
 263 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 when I see youthful garments on old 
 shoulders, I am sometimes filled with 
 impatience and think, " Oh, you silly 
 woman!" But I am still more filled 
 with pity and say, " Poor woman ! Sad 
 woman! Woman on whose shoulders 
 so heavy a burden has been laid that 
 you cannot face the inevitable ! " 
 
 I remember there lived in our town 
 a maiden lady who kept her pretty looks 
 so that she was like a sort of thistle 
 down wraith of a girl. She lived alone 
 and on so small a stipend that no one 
 knew how she kept soul and body to 
 gether. She was one of those poor souls 
 who had lost her lover on the eve of 
 her marriage and f orevermore mourned 
 him. 
 
 When she died, strangers swarmed 
 
 over her house. At the time of the auc- 
 264 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 tion there had been no one of near enough 
 kin to take the trouble to go over the 
 house and put away the little trivial 
 effects of the dead which no casual eye 
 should ever see, and so there was un 
 covered before the gaping town row af 
 ter row of empty bottles of complexion 
 bleach slightly tinged with pink; peo 
 ple laughed and gossiped and thought 
 it was very funny. There were others 
 who frowned, asserting that at her time 
 of life this woman should have known 
 better than to spend her few pennies 
 on such folly; which was all, no doubt, 
 very wise and true. This poor lady kept 
 herself young only for herself. I suppose 
 she did n t want the ghost of her dead 
 lover to find a wrinkled old woman in 
 place of the fresh -faced girl he had 
 loved. 
 
 265 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 You may be sure that almost all older 
 women who refuse to grow old grace 
 fully reveal some tragedy in these mis 
 taken efforts which should cause 
 younger people to be sorry. After all, 
 it is growing old gracefully in the spirit 
 that counts, and it seems to me more 
 important as we advance in years that 
 our spirits should be sweetened, and 
 that we should be kinder in our outlook 
 upon life, and that we should fight 
 against the egotism of age, than that 
 we should dress in a way to proclaim 
 our years. 
 
 Perhaps my turning away from my 
 looking-glass, and all my self -con 
 sciousness and rebellion at the advanc 
 ing traces of years, are a greater sin 
 against the true standard of growing 
 old gracefully than those who can trick 
 266 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 themselves into a belief that they look 
 young and try naively to trick others. 
 
 When a young woman criticizes an 
 older for these foibles, I do not think 
 she is preparing herself in her heart to 
 grow old gracefully, and yet all of us 
 are preparing every day for what sort 
 of old age we are going to pass. The 
 question of growing old as one should 
 is a very deep one. It is n t a matter of 
 clothes; it is as deep as life itself. 
 
 When I was young I can remember 
 certain older people whose passing 
 through a room seemed to me like a 
 benediction. There was one elderly 
 relative of mine a woman who had 
 never married with whom I used to 
 pass afternoons. I don t think that I 
 ever told her one of my troubles, great 
 or small, but her very presence was so 
 267 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 sweet, so gallant, so up-standing, and, 
 withal, humorous, so like a perpetual 
 sermon to me, that I used to come 
 from her feeling as though I had drunk 
 of the spring of life ; and yet her life 
 had been difficult. Eeport said she had 
 turned her face from the marriage 
 she desired to take care of an exacting 
 mother; she had brought up a brood of 
 younger brothers and sisters, and al 
 ways she had fought against poverty, 
 and, unflinching, faced loneliness as 
 the years advanced. She, if you like, 
 had grown old gracefully, and yet, had 
 she insisted on dressing in scarlet and 
 painting her cheeks to match her 
 gown, she would have grown old no 
 less gracefully, it seems to me. 
 
 I remember another time, when I was 
 hurrying home to the bedside of a sick 
 268 
 
AN ELDERLY WOMAN 
 
 child, that my companion in the car 
 was an old man, and as we traveled to 
 gether many hours, he told me the 
 story of his life. To hear him speak of 
 his wife, who had died some years be 
 fore, was a thing that made one be 
 lieve in mankind; to hear him speak in 
 a simple, refreshing way of his faith 
 would make one, doubting, believe in 
 God. He himself was fighting for the 
 life of a son who had been stricken 
 with consumption, but was winning in 
 the fight. His brave talk and his loving 
 attitude of mind poured I know not 
 what strength into my own faltering 
 spirit, and enabled me to go to the 
 nursing that was before me with an 
 unflinching heart, though he knew 
 nothing of my trouble. 
 
 As I grow older, I see examples 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 here and there of lovely and inspir 
 ing old age, and I pray that I may 
 grow old gracefully in some image 
 like that. 
 
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