The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (101 page)

     Alfred Hersland was with them in his daily living with the people living near him, with the boys around him in his daily living and he did then everything he did with them and he did then everything they did in their daily living and he had not in him then anything at all of family living. When he was a boy, when he was beginning his living he lived his daily life then doing everything he did then with the boys the women and men living near him. He did his roller skating, a little shooting, some camping, a good deal of fishing, some going about the country selling fruit he had been picking with them in the orchard in the ten acre place where the Herslands were living and any other fruit belonging to any of them that they could use for selling, he did everything in his daily living with them, he was with them when they were with girls then and he did with the gills everything a boy does when he is with them. He had then public school living. He did his daily living completely with them, he did everything they were doing then, this was the history of the living he had in him when he was a young one: he did everything then with these then living near him, he had then his being in him and his daily living and this is now then to be a description of the living then in him with the being in him.
     There were then the Banks boys who lived near him, there were three of them, it was the oldest one who was mostly with him, the second one George who had lost two fingers from a sickness he had that no one ever mentioned to him was the one with whom David Hersland later did his living. The oldest Banks brother Albert, who later in his living did shoemaking, George later was a clerk and pretty successful in living, the third brother then a very red faced freckled one who could crow very well and always was on fences doing this thing and his later living came when the Herslands did not any longer any of them any more know what happened to any one in that part of Gossols and so there is not to be any telling of his future living, Albert was a good deal in these days with Alfred Hersland and then he began shoemaking and he was not very good at learning at school and once he had a furious anger in him there and he scared every one in the school by drawing a pistol although it was an empty one and he was told not to come any more and he then began learning shoemaking but he was a good fellow to be with for any one and pleasant enough and he and Alfred did everything together then until the shoemaking began and then he went with men and Alfred was not so completely with him then. These Banks boys had in them all three of them half city half country living, Alfred had in him completely half city half country living, when he began shoemaking city living came to be more strongly in him, Albert then went on with his half city half country living, he went on then living with those then near him who kept on in them being half city half country in their feeling. There were some of them who kept on having halt city half country feeling some of those living near the Herslands then and after Albert Banks began learning shoemaking Alfred Hersland was mostly with them. The one who might have been interested in Martha if she had been more interesting to him was one of such of them. Alfred when he was not any longer a boy in his living was for a little while a good deal with this one. He did then, Alfred did then pretty nearly entirely everything that this one, that this crowd of them were doing then in their daily living. Alfred was beginning to have a little in him beginning then the feeling of family being but it was not in him then yet as in any way determining and he was then completely entirely doing in his daily living what these having in them hall country half city living were doing.
     There were a number of little houses in this part of Gossols and Alfred knew a good many of the people living in them. In a good many of them the same people kept on living all the time the Herslands were living in a ten acre place there, in some of the houses there was much moving, people would be very often coming and going. Once there was a family that stayed one year there and there were two children an older boy and a very young one, the older one Louis Champion was very much with Alfred then, the little brother was a nuisance to them, Alfred did a good deal of roller skating, some camping out and more or less fishing with Louis Champion. Louis was a pleasant fellow and good-looking.
     Alfy was often out in the evening, in the summer he was out a long time almost always every evening. Sometimes he went out with some of them living in small houses near him, sometimes some of them would be playing hide and go seek around the Hersland house with him. Albert Banks was often playing, going about with him of an evening. They were together very often in the evening. Alfy was very often out in the evening with some of them living near him. In the summer he was out a long time almost always every evening. Very often he would be going off somewhere to do something or he would be standing around with them or they would be all of them hanging around together in a vacant lot that was near to where all of them were living. Sometimes they would be chasing all around all of them, sometimes some of them would be hiding and running on the Hersland place as I was just saying. Albert Banks was often then with Alfy in the evening, less at first after he began learning shoemaking, earlier when he was still going to school he was almost always together with Alfy on a summer evening. All the year Alfy was very often out in the evening when he was a little older boy and in the summer he was out a long time almost always every evening. Sometimes he was out with some of them he was doing everything with in his daily living, sometimes they would be together playing hide and seek in his orchard and in his garden. Albert Banks as I was saying would be then almost always with him in the evening, he would often be playing hide and seek in the Hersland orchard and garden with them, this was before he was thinking of beginning learning shoemaking. Frank and Will Roddy often were with them all in the evening. Frank and Will Roddy often were there in the evening at the Hersland place playing with Albert Banks and Alfred Hersland and David. They were often playing hide and go seek in the summer in the evening. Sometimes some girls would be with them, sometimes Martha Hersland would be with them. Every now and then there would be some girls playing along with them. Albert Banks and Frank and Will Roddy for some time were almost always together with Alfy in the evening. Albert Banks as I was saying later began learning shoe-making, he was then not so very much with Alfy and the Roddy boys who were still then a good deal together in the evening. Frank Roddy later in his living went into the country to earn his living. Will Roddy later went into a cigar stand, clerking, and then his father died and he had a little money and he came to be a partner and then he and the other one failed and they were not fair then they very much favored one creditor, they had some trouble, later very many years later some of the Herslands happened to hear from some one that Will Roddy was in jail because of something he had been doing. He was supposed not to have been very honest and afterwards he was in jail. He was a little fellow and very quick.
     So then Alfy and Albert Banks and the Roddy boys were often playing hide and go seek in the summer in the evening. They were a good deal together mostly every evening as I was saying. They were very often together in a vacant lot playing or hanging around together somewhere and often enough they would be chasing around in the Hersland orchard and garden. Sometimes there some girls would be with them. Sometimes then Martha Hersland would be with them. Alfred and David very often were playing hide and go seek with Albert Banks and the Roddy boys and sometimes some others, in the Hersland orchard and garden. Sometimes some girls would be with them, sometimes then Martha Hersland would be with them. Sometimes then they stayed a long time in the orchard, later then Alfred said to Martha he would tell her father, she had no business to be playing. Sometimes he would be angry and later he would threaten her if she would not do something he wanted her to be doing he would tell her father she was playing hide and go seek in the evening. Sometimes later there would be quarrelling and Alfy would be saying Martha should not be playing that evening. Sometimes Alfy would make Martha go in. He would say if she did not go in he would tell her father she was playing hide and go seek in the evening. Don't you know any better than to come along, he would say to her. He was then a little beginning to have in him the feeling that he was a good citizen, that he was the oldest son, he did not know then yet very specifically why she should go in, she did not know then very specifically why she should go in, they neither of them knew very specifically why she should not be playing hide and go seek in the evening but Alfy was beginning then to have such a feeling about himself in him that he should send her in and later then if she did not do something he wanted she should be doing he always said he would then tell his father she had been playing hide and go seek in the evening and then she always had a sullen fear inside her. Neither of them then as I was saying knew very specifically what they were meaning. Martha, Alfred and David Hersland all three were out a good deal in the evening. Alfred was often out in the evening, in the summer he was out a long time almost always every evening. He was then doing everything with the children and women and men living near him, he was then doing everything mostly that they were doing, he was doing everything he did with them. He was then mostly always out with them in the evening. He was then and when he was older he was then with them, some of them sometimes with a good many of them in the evening. He was always then doing everything he was doing then with them. Alfred all his younger living was out very often in the evening, then and later in his Gossols living he was often out in the evening, in the summer he was out a long time almost always in the evening. Mostly he stayed entirely in that part of Gossols where he was living. Mostly he never went away from the crowd living near him. Mostly he in the evening when he was a young one when he was an older one stayed in that part of Gossols where the Herslands were living, was with them the people living in small houses near him.
     There were some whom he knew who were living in another part of Gossols and he sometimes saw them, sometimes he saw them very often. This is now to be a description of them, of all of them. There were two families of them that the Hersland children came to know and each of them lived in a different part of Gossols. They had no connection with each other. The Fishers one of these families then were friends of the woman who lived near the Herslands and did dress-making sometimes for Mrs. Hersland. Sometimes Mary Fisher came to see the second daughter Cora who was not yet come to be a really pretty one. Sometimes Mary Fisher's brother Henry came with her and so the Herslands all of them came to know them and they each one in their way all excepting Mrs. Hersland came to know the Fishers very well. Mr. Hersland came to know them very well later, Martha and Alfred and David Hersland came to know them earlier. They were six of them of the Fisher family, four children and a father and mother. Mr. Fisher had something to do with horses, that was the way he made a living. The Hersland children never came to know him. They sometimes saw him and spoke to him. Henry the second son they came to know very well all of them. Henry went bicycling very often with David Hersland. Mary was the only daughter and all the Hersland family came to know her. Later Mrs. Hersland came to know her a good deal and Martha Hersland always liked her. Mrs. Hersland liked her well enough but never came really to know her. Alfred used to stay in her kitchen talking to her. Jim was the oldest son and brother. The Herslands did not, any of them, ever come to know him. The Fishers were all proud of him, he was a commercial traveler and was apart from them. Slowly it came out about him that he was going to ruin from a taste for liquor. Later he took a cure and was better, none of the Herslands ever saw him, not any of them ever came to know him. Mrs. Fisher was a tall kindly faced kind of woman. She was always good and mostly always in the kitchen. All the Herslands came to know her, Mrs. Hersland never really came to know her. Henry Fisher was a very reliable person, he was very pleasant always to Martha Hersland, he and David Hersland did a great deal of bicycling together. Alfred Hersland was at the Fishers sometimes for an evening. They were not really ever very important in his living.
     Another family with whom the Herslands Martha and Alfred and David, never Mr. and Mrs. Hersland, spent an evening were the Henrys and these were not really important to them. They came to know them quite by accident having sat next to them at a theatre one afternoon and then they went to see them. They went there quite often in the evening one or two or all three of the Herslands then. Mr. and Mrs. Hersland never came to know any of them of the Henry family. There were four children, James Henry a tall thin one who played the violin while the other ones danced in the evening. Henry a pleasant enough sensible enough fellow to be knowing, Rose Henry a little dark one and Carrie Henry who was just one of them. The Herslands would go there and eat dinner with them, Mrs. Henry browned potatoes, pealed, when she roasted her meat the way french people do them, the Herslands always ate very many of them, the forks and knives the Henrys used for eating were worn dawn very thin, later then James Henry played and all of them danced pretty solemnly in a quadrille. This happened quite often in the evening. The Henrys were really not important in the living of any of the Hersland children. Later then they did not see any of them, Mr. Henry later killed himself and every one wondered if he had been crazy when he did this thing. They were not any of them ever important in the living of Martha, Alfred or David Hersland.
     Alfred as I was saying was in Gossols when he was a very young one and when he was a little an older one. Sometimes then later he saw a little sometimes of Olga the sister of the first governess the Herslands had had in their Gossols living staying with them. Sometimes the Wyman family made up to him. This is the way he had all these in him this that I am now beginning describing. This is now beginning to be a history of him, a history of Alfred Hersland of all the being and all the living in him.