Chapter I

Why did I marry Liu Kanghi, a Chinese? Well, in the first place, because I loved him; in the second place, because I was weary of working, struggling and fighting with the world; in the third place, because my child needed a home.

My first husband was an American fifteen years older than myself. For a few months I was very happy with him. I had been a working girl—a stenographer. A home of my own filled my heart with joy. It was a pleasure to me to wait upon James, cook him nice little dinners and suppers, read to him little pieces from the papers and magazines, and sing and play to him my little songs and melodies. And for a few months he seemed to be perfectly contented. I suppose I was a novelty to him, he having lived a bachelor existence until he was thirty-four. But it was not long before he left off smiling at my little jokes, grew restive and cross when I teased him, and when I tried to get him to listen to a story in which I was interested and longed to communicate, he would bid me not bother him. I was quick to see the change and realize that there was a gulf of differences between us. Nevertheless, I loved and was proud of him. He was considered a very bright and well-informed man, and although his parents had been uneducated working people he had himself been through the public schools. He was also an omnivorous reader of socialistic and new-thought literature. Woman suffrage was one of his particular hobbies. Whenever I had a magazine around he would pick it up and read aloud to me the columns of advice to women who were ambitious to become comrades to men and walk shoulder to shoulder with their brothers. Once I ventured to remark that much as I admired a column of men keeping step together, yet men and women thus ranked would, to my mind, make a very unbeautiful and disorderly spectacle. He frowned and answered that I did not understand him, and was too frivolous. He would often draw my attention to newspaper reports concerning women of marked business ability and enterprise. Once I told him that I did not admire clever business women, as I had usually found them, and so had other girls of my acquaintance, not nearly so kind-hearted, generous, and helpful as the humble drudges of the world—the ordinary working women. His answer to this was that I was jealous and childish.

But, in spite of his unkind remarks and evident contempt for me, I wished to please him. He was my husband and I loved him. Many an afternoon, when through with my domestic duties, did I spend in trying to acquire a knowledge of labor politics, socialism, woman suffrage, and baseball, the things in which he was most interested.

It was hard work, but I persevered until one day. It was about six months after our marriage. My husband came home a little earlier than usual, and found me engaged in trying to work out problems in subtraction and addition. He laughed sneeringly. “Give it up, Minnie,” said he. “You weren’t built for anything but taking care of kids. Gee! But there’s a woman at our place who has a head for figures that makes her worth over a hundred dollars a month. _Her_ husband would have a chance to develop himself.”

This speech wounded me. I knew it was James’ ambition to write a book on social reform.

The next day, unknown to my husband, I called upon the wife of the man who had employed me as stenographer before I was married, and inquired of her whether she thought I could get back my old position.

“But, my dear,” she exclaimed, “your husband is receiving a good salary! Why should you work?”

I told her that my husband had in mind the writing of a book on social reform, and I wished to help him in his ambition by earning some money towards its publication.

“Social reform!” she echoed. “What sort of social reformer is he who would allow his wife to work when he is well able to support her!”

She bade me go home and think no more of an office position. I was disappointed. I said: “Oh! I wish I could earn some money for James. If I were earning money, perhaps he would not think me so stupid.”

“Stupid, my dear girl! You are one of the brightest little women I know,” kindly comforted Mrs. Rogers.

But I knew differently and went on to tell her of my inability to figure with my husband how much he had made on certain sales, of my lack of interest in politics, labor questions, woman suffrage, and world reformation. “Oh!” I cried, “I am a narrow-minded woman. All I care for is for my husband to love me and be kind to me, for life to be pleasant and easy, and to be able to help a wee bit the poor and sick around me.”

Mrs. Rogers looked very serious as she told me that there were differences of opinion as to what was meant by “narrow-mindedness,” and that the majority of men had no wish to drag their wives into all their business perplexities, and found more comfort in a woman who was unlike rather than like themselves. Only that morning her husband had said to her: “I hate a woman who tries to get into every kink of a man’s mind, and who must be forever at his elbow meddling with all his affairs.”

I went home comforted. Perhaps after a while James would feel and see as did Mr. Rogers. Vain hope!

My child was six weeks old when I entered business life again as stenographer for Rutherford & Rutherford. My salary was fifty dollars a month—more than I had ever earned before, and James was well pleased, for he had feared that it would be difficult for me to obtain a paying place after having been out of practise for so long. This fifty dollars paid for all our living expenses, with the exception of rent, so that James would be able to put by his balance against the time when his book would be ready for publication.

He began writing his book, and Miss Moran the young woman bookkeeper at his place collaborated with him. They gave three evenings a week to the work, sometimes four. She came one evening when the baby was sick and James had gone for the doctor. She looked at the child with the curious eyes of one who neither loved nor understood children. “There is no necessity for its being sick,” said she. “There must be an error somewhere.” I made no answer, so she went on: “Sin, sorrow, and sickness all mean the same thing. We have no disease that we do not deserve, no trouble which we do not bring upon ourselves.”

I did not argue with her. I knew that I could not; but as I looked at her standing there in the prime of her life and strength, broad-shouldered, masculine-featured, and, as it seemed to me, heartless, I disliked her more than I had ever disliked anyone before. My own father had died after suffering for many years from a terrible malady, contracted while doing his duty as a physician and surgeon. And my little innocent child! What had sin to do with its measles?

When James came in she discussed with him the baseball game which had been played that afternoon, and also a woman suffrage meeting which she had attended the evening before.

After she had gone he seemed to be quite exhilarated. “That’s a great woman!” he remarked.

“I do not think so!” I answered him. “One who would take from the sorrowful and suffering their hope of a happier existence hereafter, and add to their trials on earth by branding them as objects of aversion and contempt, is not only not a great woman but, to my mind, no woman at all.”

He picked up a paper and walked into another room.

“What do you think now?” I cried after him.

“What would be the use of my explaining to you?” he returned. “You wouldn’t understand.”

How my heart yearned over my child those days! I would sit before the typewriter and in fancy hear her crying for her mother. Poor, sick little one, watched over by a strange woman, deprived of her proper nourishment. While I took dictation from my employer I thought only of her. The result, of course, was, that I lost my place. My husband showed his displeasure at this in various ways, and as the weeks went by and I was unsuccessful in obtaining another position, he became colder and more indifferent. He was neither a drinking nor an abusive man; but he could say such cruel and cutting things that I would a hundred times rather have been beaten and ill-used than compelled, as I was, to hear them. He even made me feel it a disgrace to be a woman and a mother. Once he said to me: “If you had had ambition of the right sort you would have perfected yourself in your stenography so that you could have taken cases in court. There’s a little fortune in that business.”

I was acquainted with a woman stenographer who reported divorce cases and who had described to me the work, so I answered: “I would rather die of hunger, my baby in my arms, then report divorce proceedings under the eyes of men in a court house.”

“Other women, as good as you, have done and are doing it,” he retorted.

“Other women, perhaps better than I, have done and are doing it,” I replied, “but all women are not alike. I am not that kind.”

“That’s so,” said he. “Well, they are the kind who are up to date. You are behind the times.”

One evening I left James and Miss Moran engaged with their work and went across the street to see a sick friend. When I returned I let myself into the house very softly for fear of awakening the baby whom I had left sleeping. As I stood in the hall I heard my husband’s voice in the sitting-room. This is what he was saying:

“I am a lonely man. There is no companionship between me and my wife.”

“Nonsense!” answered Miss Moran, as I thought a little impatiently. “Look over this paragraph, please, and tell me if you do not think it would be well to have it follow after the one ending with the words ‘ultimate concord,’ in place of that beginning with ‘These great principles.’”

“I cannot settle my mind upon the work tonight,” said James in a sort of thick, tired voice. “I want to talk to you—to win your sympathy—your love.”

I heard a chair pushed back. I knew Miss Moran had arisen.

“Good night!” I heard her say. “Much as I would like to see this work accomplished, I shall come no more!”

“But, my God! You cannot throw the thing up at this late date.”

“I can and I will. Let me pass, sir.”

“If there were no millstone around my neck, you would not say, sir,’ in that tone of voice.”

The next I heard was a heavy fall. Miss Moran had knocked my big husband down.

I pushed open the door. Miss Moran, cool and collected, was pulling on her gloves. James was struggling to his feet.

“Oh, Mrs. Carson!” exclaimed the former. “Your husband fell over the stool. Wasn’t it stupid of him!”

* * * * *

James, of course, got his divorce six months after I deserted him. He did not ask for the child, and I was allowed to keep it.