The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (3 page)

     Yes it certainly was very different now with him. Could one ever have it real to him that in one life time a man could have it all so different for him, that a man all alone in his single lifetime could make it so that he could have it to be truly all so different in him.
     Nay for a man to have it in a single life time all so different for him is more strange than being born and being then a baby and then a child and then a young grown man and then old like a man grown old and then dead and so no more of living, it is more strange because it makes so many lives in this one living. Each one of these lives that he forgets or remembers only as a dim beginning is a whole life to us in our thinking, and so Henry Dehning has had many lives in him to our feeling.
     Could one believe it that he was a grown man and he was then living like the man who comes into his place now to do a little selling to the servants in the kitchen. And yet that was one whole full life for him; and then there was the old world where there had been for him such a very different kind of living. Yes as he stands there talking to his children of the things that are never real now any more to his feeling, a man comes up the walk and slinks back when he sees them and goes sneaking to the kitchen and there he sells little things to the women who buy them out of Irish fun or just to be kind to him, for his things are really not good enough for them, they are things for people poorer than any that work in a kitchen; and so Mr. Dehning goes on talking to his children and it is all more real to their feeling than it is now to his thinking, for they have it in their fear which young ones always have inside them, and he, he has it only as a dim beginning as being like a baby or an old grown man or woman. Nay how can he ever have it in him to feel it now as really present to him, such things as meekness or poor ways or self attendance or no comforts, it is only a fear that could make such things be now as present to him, and he has no such a fear ever inside him, not for himself ever or even for his children, for he is strong in a sense of always winning. It is they, the children, who, though they too feel a strength inside them and talk about it very often, yet way down deep in them they know they have no way to be really certain; and always they are brave, good-looking, honest, prosperous children and the father feels strong pride as he looks around him.
     The Dehning family was made of this father and mother and three children. Mr. Dehning was very proud of his children and proud of all the things he knew that they could teach him. There were two daughters and a son of them.
     Julia Dehning was named after her grandmother, but, as her father often told her, she never looked the least bit like her and yet there was a little in her that made the old world not all lost to her, a little that made one always remember that her grandmother and her father had had always a worn old world to remember.
     Yes Julia looked much like her mother. That fair good-looking prosperous woman had stamped her image on each one of her children, and with her eldest, Julia, the stamp went deep, far deeper than just for the fair good-looking exterior.
     Julia Dehning was now just eighteen and she showed in all its vigor, the self-satisfied crude domineering American girlhood that was strong inside her. Perhaps she was born too near to the old world to ever attain quite altogether that crude virginity that makes the American girl safe in all her liberty. Yes the American girl is a crude virgin and she is safe in her freedom.
     And now, so thought her mother, and Julia was quite of the same opinion, the time had come for Julia to have a husband and to begin her real important living.
     Under Julia's very American face, body, clothes and manner and her vigor of the domineering and crude virgin, there were now and then flashes of passion that lit up an older well hidden tradition. Yes in Julia Dehning the prosperous, good-looking, domineering woman was a very attractive being. Julia irradiated energy and brilliant enjoying, she was vigorous, and like her mother, fair and firmly compacted, and she was full of bright hopes, and strong in the spirit of success that she felt always in her. Julia was much given to hearty joyous laughing and to an ardent honest feeling, and she hit the ground as she walked with the same hard jerking with which her mother Mrs. Dehning always rebuked her husband's sinning. Yes Julia Dehning was bright and full of vigor, and with something always a little harsh in her, making underneath her young bright vigorous ardent honest feeling a little of the sense of rasping that was just now in her mother's talking.
     And so those who read much in story books surely now can tell what to expect of her, and yet, please reader, remember that this is perhaps not the whole of our story either, neither her father for her, nor the living down her mother who is in her, for I am not ready yet to take away the character from our Julia, for truly she may work out as the story books would have her or we may find all different kinds of things for her, and so reader, please remember, the future is not yet certain for her, and be you well warned reader, from the vain-glory of being sudden in your judgment of her.
     After Julia came the boy George and he was not named after his grandfather. And so it was right that in his name he should not sound as if he were the son of his father, so at least his mother decided for him, and the father, he laughed and let her do the way she liked it. And so the boy was named George and the other was there but hidden as an initial to be only used for signing.
     The boy George bade fair to do credit to his christening. George Dehning now about fourteen was strong in sport and washing. He was not foreign in his washing. Oh, no, he was really an American.
     It's a great question this question of washing. One never can find any one who can be satisfied with anybody else's washing. I knew a man once who never as far as any one could see ever did any washing, and yet he described another with contempt, why he is a dirty hog sir, he never does any washing. The French tell me it's the Italians who never do any washing, the French and the Italians both find the Spanish a little short in their washing, the English find all the world lax in this business of washing, and the East finds all the West a pig, which never is clean with just the little cold water washing. And so it goes.
     Yes it has been said that even a flea has other little fleas to bite him, and so it is with this washing, everybody can find some one to condemn for his lack of washing. Even the man who, when he wants to take a little hut in the country to live in, and they said to him, but there is no water to have there, and he said, what does that matter, in this country one can always have wine for his drinking, he too has others who for him don't think enough about their washing; and then there is the man who takes the bath-tub out of his house because he don't believe in promiscuous bathing; and there is the plumber who says, yes I have always got to be fixing bath-tubs for other people to get clean in, and I, I haven't got time enough to wash my hands even; and then there are the French bohemians, now one never would think of them as extravagantly cleanly beings, and yet in a village in Spain they were an astonishment to all the natives, why do you do so much washing, they all demanded of them, when your skin is so white and clean even when you first begin to clean them; and then there is the dubious smelly negro woman who tells you about another woman who is as dirty as a dog and as ragged as a spring chicken, and yet some dogs certainly do sometimes do some washing and this woman had certainly not much sign of ever having had such a thing happening; and then there is the virtuous poor woman who brings her child to the dispensary for a treatment and the doctor says to her, no I won't touch her now anymore until you clean her, and the woman cries out in her indignation, what you think I am poor like a beggar, I got money enough to pay for a doctor, I show you I can hire a real doctor, and she slams the door and rushes out with her daughter. Yes it certainly is very queer in her. All this washing business is certainly most peculiar. Surely it is true that even little fleas have always littler ones to bite them.
     And then when we are all through with the pleasant summer and its gorgeous washing, then comes the dreadful question of the winter washing. It's easy enough to wash often when the sun is hot and they are sticky and perspiring and the water in a natural kind of a way is always flowing, but when it comes to be nasty cold as it always is in winter, then it is not any more a pleasure, it is a harsh duty then and hard to follow.
     Yes it certainly is all very funny, and so we come back to talk some more about George Dehning, George who in this washing is always strong to do all his duty.
     George Dehning was a fair athletic chap, cheery as his father and full of excellent intentions, and though these were almost all lost in their way to their fulfillment, remember, George was only fourteen just then, that time with a boy when he never can have much sense in him, for it nearly always is then with boys that the meekest of them are reckless dare-devil heedless unreflecting fellows, and so reader do not make too much for him of any present weakness in him.
     Yes, George Dehning was not at all foreign in his washing but for him, too, the old world was not altogether lost behind him. Sometimes the boy had a way with him, and it would show clear in spite of the fair cheery sporty nature he had in him, a way of looking sleepy and reflecting, and his lids would never be really ever very open, and he would be always only half showing his clear grey eyes that, very often, were bright alive and laughing.
     Later such a way of looking could be of great service to him. It would not matter if he never really could have wisdom in him, this look could help him always in his dealings with all men and be of much service too to him with women. He will listen then, and with his veiled eyes it will be as if he were full with thinking, and with himself always well hidden, and so he will be wise; or for a woman, it will be as if he were always in a dream of them. Wisdom and dreaming, both good things when shown at the right time by a young grown man, who wants to be succeeding, always, in every kind of living.
     And so for the moment we leave the sporty cheery well washed George Dehning with his background and his future of wisdom and of dreaming, both now pretty well hidden away in the depths of him.
     And then there was the littlest one whose name had been all given without regard to the old world behind them. They called her Hortense for that was both elegant and new then. The father let the mother do as she liked with the naming, he laughed and a little he did not like it in him and then a little he was proud of his Miss Jenny and her way of doing.
     And so the littlest was Hortense Dehning. She too had the stamp of the fair prosperous woman who had set her seal so firmly on her children, but little Hortense had perhaps a little more in her of that sweet good woman who had born many children and then had died away and left them for that was all she knew then to do for them.
     The little Hortense Dehning was not of much importance yet in the family living. Hortense was ten now and full of adoration for her big sister and yet most of all for her brother. She was not very strong and she could not run after him in his playing, but sometimes he would sit and talk to her about himself and his resolutions and the elaborated purposes that he was always losing. George was always very moral and too he was very hopeful. He always began his to-morrow with himself full of a firm resolution to do all things every minute and to do them all very complicatedly. George felt always he must bring up this little sister for he George was the only one who knew the right ways for her.
     And so he preached a great deal to her, and little Hortense was very devout and adored her instructor. There was always a dependent loyal up-gazing sweetness in her.
     Being the baby of the family she was much petted by her father and always she was overawed by her brother, who was very careful to be noble to her. She was not just then very much with her mother for she was not at this time very important to her. The mother was so busy with her Julia, to find an important and good husband for her. And so little Hortense was left much to her brother and to the governess they had for her.
     For us now as well as for the mother the important matter in the history of the Dehning family is the marrying of Julia. I have said that a strong family likeness bound all the three children firmly to their mother. That fair good-looking prosperous woman had stamped her image on each one of her children, but with only the eldest Julia was the stamp deep, deeper than for the fair good-looking exterior.
     All the family had always looked up to Julia. They delighted in her daring and in a kind of heroical sweetness there was in her. They respected in her, her educated ways and her knowing always what was the right way she and all of them should be doing. It was not for nothing she was a crude domineering virgin. And she was strong in the success she knew always that she had inside her, and the family always admired and followed after.
     Her father loved her energy and vigor, he loved her happiness and the ardent honest feeling in her. He was always very ready to yield to her, he liked to hear her when she explained to him in her quick decisive manner the new faith she had so strongly in her, the new illusions and the theories and new movements that the spirit of her generation had taught to her. And he laughed at her new fangled notions and her educated literary business and all her modern kinds of improvements as he called them, and he abused them and too the way she had of believing that she knew more than her mother, but always it amused the father to have his bright quick daughter explain all these new ways to him. Mr. Dehning knew well the value of what he had learned by living, but his was a nature generous in its feeling and he was always ready to listen to his children when they could fairly demonstrate their ideas to him.
     But Herman Dehning's pride and pleasure in his Julia was all exceeded by the loud voiced satisfaction of the mother to whom this brilliant daughter always seemed as the product of the mother's own exertions. In her it was the vanity and exultation of creation as well as of possession and she never fairly learned how completely it was the girl who governed all the family life and how very much of this young life was hidden from her knowledge.