The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (13 page)

     In some of them the mixing of the trickling and the stubbornness inside them came to make an angry feeling that came in flashes from them, in some of them it came to make a suspicious feeling inside them that made it hard for them to trust in women or in men, and always, as I was saying, the father and the dreary mother were very variously mixed up in each one of them.
     As I was saying, one of them who even more than Fanny Hissen had the almost important feeling that the mother had inside her with her constant trickling crying that was always rising in her, this one came to have it even more in her, came to have it almost really in her by an individual kind of thinking that arose of itself inside her. She had the gentle tenderness in her that made constant dreary trickling in her mother, and it came all from inside her, and she had no stubborn ways in her, she was pure as the sweetest ones of those around her those who had turned to sweetness the dreariness of their mother, and she had not stubbornness inside her, she had only from her father the thinking that had made him for himself to be all there was of power. And this one of the Hissen women came very near to winning, came very near to seeing, came very nearly making of herself to herself a really individual being. She was a little not strong enough in keeping going, and so with her it came only to being a very nearly really important feeling of herself to herself inside her. And she was the nearest any of them ever came to winning.
     There were very many of them and each one, of course, had his or her own individual way of feeling, thinking, and of doing, and with all of them the father and the mother were variously mixed up in them, and with some of them it was more the father and it made sometimes a stubborn feeling to be the most important thing inside them after the family that made all them and sometimes this the stubborn feeling met in them with the other things they had within them and sometimes then it was a sharp bright angry feeling that was strongest in them after the family way that had made all them, and these then would have a stubborn or an angry feeling when anything happened to any one of them. And then in some of them it was the dreary mother that was strongest in them and they had a sweetness in them and these then would have hurt feelings in them and very often with them then, their mouths would be drooping and these would then be hurt not angry when any bad thing happened to them. And sometimes there was a mixing up of all these ways together in them.
     But mostly all of them were cheerful hopeful contented men and women, mostly they lived without ambition or excitement but they were each in their little circle joyful in the present. Mostly they lived and died in mildness and contentment.
     David Hersland married Fanny Hissen. He took her out to Gossols with him. He married her in Bridgepoint where her family had always been living. David Hersland had been there visiting a sister who had settled there with her man who was making a very good living. David Hersland was a young man then but already he had made by himself enough money to support himself and a wife and children. And now it had come to him to go west to Gossols where he was to make a great fortune. And so it was right for his sister at this time to arrange a marriage for him. The idea of going to Gossols was just beginning in him. Perhaps marrying might keep him from going, any way it would be good for him to have a good wife to go to Gossols with him.
     He met Fanny Hissen and she was pleasing to him. It was arranged by his sister that this young woman was to be married to him. They married soon after the first meeting and then they mixed up their two natures in them and then through them there came the three children, Martha, Alfred, and young David, and these three are of them who are to be always in this history of us young grown men and women to us. In the history of them we will be always ourselves and our friends inside them for so we know them those who are for us always young grown men and women to us even when they are of the age of children or later grown old men and women. Always they are us and we them and so always they are for us young grown men and women.
     So now then we begin again this history of us and always we must keep in us the knowledge of the men and women who as parents and grandparents came together and mixed up to make us and we must have always in us a lively sense of these mothers and these fathers, of how they lived and married and then they had us and we came to be inside us in us. We must realise always in us, so that we can know what is us, we must realise inside us their lives and marriages and feelings and how they all slowly came to make us. All things in them must be important to us. And so we must know slowly inside us how they came to be married and so made us, and we must know, so that we can know what we feel inside us, we must know the kind of important feeling in them that made them what they were in their living marrying and thinking, the things that were always inside them, the things that gave each one of them their individual feeling.
     In the slow history of three of those who are to be always in this history of us young grown men and women to us, in the slow history of Martha Alfred and young David Hersland, of how they came each one to have their kind of important individual feeling inside them in them, in this slow history of them the thing that we have as a beginning is the history of Fanny Hissen and David Hersland, of their living marrying and their important feeling, and so now we leave the rest of the Hissen living and begin with Fanny and David Hersland and their marrying and then we go on with the important feeling that was always in him and the important feeling and its beginning in her with the new kind of living, and then in her later living how she came to be so strong in this important feeling that when she came back to Bridgepoint to visit the rest of them, the Hissens who had led the for them natural way of living, she was then a kind of princess to them. They did not know, any of them, what it was that made her so different from them. It was only her kind of feeling, rich ways and simple and expensive clothing and far western living could never give them the sense of her being as a princess to them, it was that she had in her, from her way of living that was not the natural way of living for her, it was from this living that had come to her and from the mother who had been begun again inside her that she had come to have a small almost important feeling of herself inside her.
     This made her different from the others of them. Only the eldest of them had it as a power in her, an important feeling of herself inside her, and they all could not bear it from her for she had no sweetness toward them in her. But all this history of her will come later. Now David Hersland is to be married to her and she is to leave her family feeling all behind her.
     Later there will be more talking of the natural Hissen way of living. Later when the Hersland children have grown to be ready to begin their later living then we will know more of some of them, of some of the Hissen family in the, for them, natural way of living, of what it is in each one of them that makes him different from the others of them, even though they have not ever inside in them a really individual feeling. The mixture in them of the father who was to himself all there was of living and the dreary mother who had almost an important feeling was different in every one of them.
     Later Alfred and young David came to know them the gentle cheerful Hissen men and women. Alfred later lived with some of them. When he came to college he stayed with them and later he was there near them when he was married to Julia Dehning. And then young David stayed with some of them and always he was puzzling himself and them and no one of them could help him, but they all were kind and listened to him, he was puzzling in him every day to find out what it was that could make life worth his living. Martha Hersland never came to see them, she had her trouble far from all of them and then she went out of her trouble back to Gossols and so she never saw them.
     In American teaching marrying is just loving but that is not enough for marrying. Loving is alright as a beginning but then there is marrying and that is very different. In many towns there are many in each generation, decent well to do men, who keep on in their daily living and never come to any marrying. They all do a little loving. Everybody sometime does a little loving. It takes more for marrying, sometimes it needs a sister of the man to make his marrying, sometimes the mother of the girl who is to be married to him. Mostly it is not the mother of the man nor any sister who has not already then a husband and children who makes marriages for them. Mostly for marrying it takes a sister of the man, one who has already for herself a husband and children or a mother of the girl who is to be married to him. This is not so when they are young, the man and woman, and both are lively in the feeling of loving. It is so when the man has come to be fixed in his way of living, when he finds it pleasant to go on as he is doing. It is then that it is not enough to feel a little loving, it takes then his sister, or the girl herself if she is strong to do the work for winning, or a mother of the girl, to get the man really ripe for marrying.
     The American teaching is very well for young people or for poor ones or for those who are strong in a sense of loving, who have a lively sense of wanting, who have strongly the instinct for mating, but for most of them, the well to do, comfortable men and women, it takes more to make a marriage for them, it takes others who are strong to help them, who have strongly inside them the need that all the world keep on going, who have strongly inside them the sense of the right way of living. Mostly those who have a strong sense inside them of the right way of living, of having all the world going on to marrying are the sisters of the men, they who have already then for themselves a man and children, and the mothers of the girls who are to be married to the men, and sometimes it happens that the mother of the man has strongly inside her this sense of right doing, those mothers who are not strong in jealous feeling whose sons are not as lovers to them, and this is the way it happens to almost all the comfortable well to do men and women and the American tradition makes us lie about them and mostly in our writing there are none of these ordinary, good enough, comfortable, well to do men and women.
     American teaching says it is all loving but all who know many families of women, all who know comfortable well to do men with a regular way of living know that it is all mostly lying that says it is loving that is strong to make a beginning, they need a sister who has already for herself her own man and children or a girl who is strong to make for herself her own winning or the mother of the girl who is to be married to him. It takes one and sometimes even all three of them and with it a fair amount of loving to make the marrying of well to do men and women. Loving is good but it has to be a very lively sense inside him to make it enough for a well to do man to get married to a woman. Loving is good, and the girl has to be pleasing to him, but it needs coaxing, arranging, flattering teasing, urging, a little good tempered irritated forcing, or else the man will forget all about his loving. It is so easy to forget a little loving. And then he must see her very often and when he is drifting he must be brought back out of his forgetting. And it is right that they should do this for him else how would there be the right kind of marrying, how would there come to be existing the decent, honest enough, comfortable men and women that never get in the American tradition any recognition, but they are always in the world existing these decent well to do men and women with the not very lively sense in them of loving and their easy forgetting, and there are the women, they are always existing, they who have inside them strongly the right feeling of how the world was in its beginning and how it must keep on going. And so there is the right kind of marrying and decent well to do fathers and good mothers are always existing who have a decent loyal feeling of the right kind of loving and they have their children and so they keep on going and we decent respectable well to do comfortable good people are all of them. This business of marrying and loving is very different with the very young, or poor or with quite old men. With all of these loving is strong inside them, they are not so peaceable with their forgetting, they are quicker with marrying than comfortable well to do young men.
     They are many families of women and the men find some in each one of them pleasing, and then the men go drifting, doing a little loving and then a little forgetting, and then restarting, until they get so strongly the feeling of loving, if they have the right kind of helping, that they come to have so strongly in them the feeling of loving that then it is an effort for them to begin again with their forgetting, and then they are ripe for marrying, and one of the family of women has him and marrying contents them and they have the right kind of living for them and everything keeps on as it was in the beginning. It is the truth that I have been telling.
     David Hersland's sister Martha arranged his marriage for him. She was right to arrange a marriage for him. David had made enough money to support himself and a wife and children. Going to the far west was just beginning to work in him. Perhaps marrying might keep him from going, anyway it would be good for him to have a good wife to go to Gossols with him.
     Martha, David Hersland's sister who arranged his marriage for him, had been married five years to a decent good man who had settled in Bridgepoint where he was making for himself a very good living. They had two children.
     Martha was one of the two Hersland women who had done very well in marrying. She had an important feeling and this was like the father's feeling in religion, and she was like her mother in her way of keeping on strongly when she had made a beginning, and she always made a beginning whenever it was right for her to do so for her feeling. She was the best one of all of them to arrange a marriage for a brother who needed to have a good wife to go out to Gossols with him.
     Martha was very like her father. She was a small good enough looking woman with blue eyes and with a manner that was not very unpleasing. She was like her father because she loved to be important, but with her it was not in religion. She was different from him because she loved to be doing. She loved to be important by the doing of all the things that were right to do to her feeling. One of these things was the marrying her brother so that he would have a good wife to follow him and serve him.