The stone wall: An autobiography

A few plants of mullein, commonly known in the East as “Indian tobacco,” showed themselves in my garden. Weeds. They must be hoed up, but the velvety sage green of the fuzzy leaves held my hand. My mind went back many years, recalling a sermon I once heard a Unitarian minister preach on the subject “What is weeds?” He prefaced his talk with the recital of an experience in his garden one morning, when a small boy, peeping through the fence, asked the usual question “What yer doin’?” The minister answered: “I’m pulling up weeds.” “What is weeds?” asked the boy. The memory of that sermon stayed with me for many years and now asserted itself. Who shall determine that such is a weed which must be hoed up because it always has been? Those mullein “weeds” grew and flourished, carefully tended as were the legitimate flowers in the garden. How grateful they seemed. The leaves broadened and covered much space. The glimpse of that wonderful Corot green daily went to my heart as the pictures from that great artist’s hand had ever done.

The first year, the leaves, catching the sparkling frost in the early morning, or the raindrops clinging in jeweled splendor and again the gentle dew, gave a varied tint that ever seemed to speak to me in gratitude for the care and interest I had given the despised weed.

The second summer found the flower stalk rising to heights unknown in its wild state. Many were the friends who “Never would have thought of bothering with a weed” but who stood in admiration before that bed of mullein.

Live things have always interested me. Full of vitality, I have always entered into work or play with great enthusiasm. I believe I have excelled in both. There are times now, at the age when I have become less active, when I feel that perhaps I was one of the “weeds” that should have been pulled up and thrown away.

Does one often have the courage to tell the whole truth about himself or herself? I am going to do it, come what may. Do we all have two lives to lead? I have led two distinct lives all my life. I should be much over a century in years if each life were to be spread out along separate lines. In both of these lives I have been absolutely sincere.

I do not expect to solve any great problem, nor have I a cure for the many ills of society of today. I have a fairly good answer to the question, “Why are we all liars?” Oh yes, we are, and you know it, and we have been all of our lives. We have all lived the most cruel, heartbreaking lies. I know why I have done so, and I believe many will acknowledge that the shoe fits them so well that they will be able to put it on and walk right out of the shop wearing it.

I have read many works on adolescence and on matters of sex, but nearly always they are filled mainly with theories and couched in such language that it is hard for the lay mind always to grasp the meaning. There will be nothing to follow here that all may not understand.

I was born in the country, in New England, of poor, because honest, parents. Maternally from that prolific Mayflower stock of Puritans, and paternally from an artistic line of English origin—musicians and painters largely—with views somewhat broader than the “May Blossoms.”

I was born, then, in 1864, the ninth and last of a flock. My brothers and sisters used to comfort me with the statement that our parents were so disgusted when they saw me, that they would not order any more. In later years I would retort that when they reached perfection they canceled all further orders.

When playtime years arrived my only companions were boys—one brother and three cousins who lived just across the road. My tastes ran naturally to boys’ sports and the out-of-doors life. To this fact I have always attributed my masculine tastes in dress and otherwise. I have always felt most at ease in tailored suits, low-heeled shoes, using large handkerchiefs, etc. I have felt that I must be physically comfortable to do my best work. I have simply ignored convention in dress; hence I believe I have done some good work. I have enjoyed smoking all of my life. Before women smoked as openly as they do now, I excused my doing so by saying that I played with boys in my younger days and had to smoke in order to do so, as they were afraid I might “tell” on them otherwise.

Nothing could ever induce me to play with dolls. How I hated one that was given to me one Christmas when I so longed for a jack-knife! My disappointment was so keen that my father loaned me his bright copper-handled knife with instructions that I should sit in one place on the big roots of a huge elm tree and whittle a particular stick which he gave me. What joy! In less than five minutes the family was summoned by my shrieks! I had cut the first finger of my left hand right through the first joint, and there it hung by the skin underneath. My oldest sister promptly broke the heads off a few matches from a card of the same, put the splint under the finger joint and bound it up with a strip of cotton cloth from the “sick bag.” Today there is not even a scar, and I have had the use of a perfectly good finger with a normally movable joint all of my life. Thinking of the great advance which has been made in first aid devices and the skill which has been acquired in surgery, makes me tremble to think of what might have been my loss if that accident had happened in recent years.

“Out with the boys” was my slogan and my joy. Sports! How I loved their games, and I might say “my games,” for my imagination was ever as alert as theirs and they were equally as keen about my suggestions as they were about their own. My brother, however, was looked upon as the real “boss” as he was the oldest of the group.

The old family homestead where my cousins lived, and the farm opposite—my home—were the scenes of real and celebrated Indian battles in the early days. We knew the stories of these bloody fights so well that we lived them over in our imagination and, barring the blood, they figured in all of our plays.

We had wonderful collections of Indian arrowheads, spears, mortars and pestles, and pottery, which we picked up here and there all over our farms. In the fall, we rejoiced in the wigwams made of stacked-up cornstalks, a bit more than did our forefathers, I fancy.

Of course I was made to sew and knit and do all the conventional things that a New England girl was supposed to do, but my stint was a nightmare and nearly always done while the boys waited impatiently outside of the window. The games were not complete without me, as I matched them in skill and surpassed them in some of the contests.

When they had work to do I was only too happy to pitch in and do my share. Their work always seemed so much more interesting than mine. There was some sense in piling wood, splitting kindling, pulling weeds, and going for the cows, but to see my mother cut perfectly good pieces of calico up into tiny pieces and fix them for me to sew together again seemed so futile! Poor mothers of those days! Nowadays, work in that line is mostly done in schools, and made very enticing.

My joy was complete when I was allowed to wear boy’s clothes when out-of-doors at play. I fancy that this digression from the conventional was allowed by my mother as a labor saving device, as skirts and petticoats were often in a sad state after a bird’s nest hunt or other romping games.

I recall a rather amusing episode which I will relate to show that we were all boys together. We had large collections of birds’ eggs. We were taught to take but one egg from the nest and never to touch the others. We took turns climbing high in the trees to get a coveted egg. It was my turn to climb and the nest was in a very difficult place. I reached it in good form and placed the egg in my mouth on my return scramble. I was nearly on the ground when my foot slipped and the egg broke! Oh! Horrors! It was far too ripe to be palatable and I landed in great distress of mind and mouth. Nevertheless, I was pounced upon and given a big beating by the “other boys” who cared not for my discomfort. The loss of that one egg was long held up to me as a disgrace of major proportion.