The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (26 page)

     Each one of them had something in them then of real country feeling. In some one of them it was the fruit-trees, in some one the vegetable gardening, in some the cows, in some the chickens, in some the selling things from the place, in some the men working, in some ways in all three of them there was then something of real country living feeling, something of country life earning of a living.
     They all three had it in them to have something of such country feeling. They got it in many ways, in hay-making, hay cutting, helping the men working, eating bread and vegetables, fruit as they were picking it, they got it from milking, and butter and cheese making, they got it from the seasons and the things they did to help things growing, they got it in every way around them, they got it in helping ploughing, in helping cut grass, and make the hay into bales for winter storing, they got it from playing Indians and having the darkness come around them, they got it from eating grass and leaves and having the taste in their mouths to bring back such things to them in their later living, they got it in every kind of a way then. They got it from the feeling of the wind around them, when they shouted with it around them, when they crouched down somewhere with it cut off from them, when they helped the men sowing seed with it blowing around them, and when the trees hit their own wood and made that queer sound that they got to have inside them. One can only get the real feeling of wind blowing in the country, in country living. Rain beating, and mud and snow and other ways of feeling the world outside them they can have in city country house living. Strong wind blowing needs real country living to give it a right feeling and this they all three of them each in their own way had then inside them. It was a very different way that each one of them had it in them, a different way too that their mother had it in her, that their father had it in him.
     Real country living feeling all three of the Hersland children in their younger living had inside them, a real country living feeling. It was to them then in their feeling real country living, it was to them then earning a living in the country way. It was so that they then felt it inside them. In their later living it was different in each one of them. In Martha this being part of the country village living was not in her later living inside her to her feeling but it was inside her in her being. In Alfred there was in his later living nothing of this in him, not in his being not in his feeling; he was of his mother then, the feeling she had had in her was what was in him then, the being important to himself inside her, the having in her the right rich being which was the natural being in her. In the younger brother David this early living was made by him into him as he made all his living in him, he made it a part of him, was something in him to be made over inside him to be a part of the whole of him.
     As I was saying Mrs. Hersland never had inside her country living feeling nor city living feeling. She did not have such a feeling in her any more than the governesses and seamstresses and servants who lived in the house with her. She had a feeling of being part of the rich right being that was natural to her. She had always in her the feeling of rich city country house living with servants and dependents in the house with her, with near her, for her, poor queer kind of people who were employed by her, who were to her different from her, who were with her to her as they had need of her; she felt herself inside her important to herself in her with such people always around her. Always more and more she felt herself important inside her. This came to be in her at its strongest inside her in her relation to a governess, Madeleine Wyman. Later it came to be less and less inside her. Later she was weakening inside her and her feeling of importance to herself inside her went out in her. She broke down a little, later, into weakness inside her. She more and more then had no strength in her, she more and more then was not important to her husband who was beginning then to have troubles in him that left him nothing of the tender feeling she had once been for him, she was less and less important to her children who were then so big inside them that she was then always lost among them. More and more then in her weakening she was not of them and superior to them the servants in the house with them and the people in the small houses near them. More and more she was weakening then, the feeling of herself inside her died out of her then. Her husband never thought about her then, she was lost then among her children who were then themselves inside in each one of them and fighting it out with all the world around them, she was not part of their world then, she was lost among them. She was not any longer then important to the servants in the house then. There was not any longer then a governess or a seamstress in the house with them. The people in the small houses near them were always less and less part of the daily living of Martha, Alfred and young David then. Mr. Hersland was the only one important to them then and so in every way the feeling of herself inside her was no longer kept up in her. Soon it all died out of the inside of her, she was weakening then and when all the troubles came to all of them in their later living she died away and left them and they all soon forgot that she had ever been important to them as a wife, a mother, a mistress living among them. One never forgot her in her later living and this was the governess Madeleine Wyman. With her had come to Mrs. Hersland to have it strongest inside her in all the living from the beginning to the ending of her, it had come to her to have in her relation to Madeleine Wyman and the family of Madeleine Wyman the strongest time in her of having a feeling of herself inside, of being important to herself in her.
     Mrs. Hersland's living in the ten acre place with a husband, three children, always with a governess, a seamstress and servants in the house with her, and with, for her, poor people around her, was the important part of living to her, the part of living where she was nearest in her to being important to herself inside her as an individual power not only as part of the rich being which was natural to her.
     She never knew it in her that it was different inside her than it would have been in her if she had lived in Bridgepoint with her family around her and the natural way of being for her always in her. Slowly the different kind of feeling of herself inside her grew to be more and more in her. It was at its strongest in her in her relation to the governess Madeleine Wyman and her struggles with the family of the Wymans who wanted to interfere with her. It was strong in her when she went a little later to visit at Bridgepoint and had her family around her. She was then herself inside her and that made a kind of a princess of her and they, her family, never knew it about her, she never knew it in her, that it was different inside her because of her having been cut off from the way of living that was the natural way of living for her. This was the end of the strongest time of being important to herself inside her. Then began the weakening of this in her, then began the weakening of the health in her, of herself inside her, of the whole of her. More and more then she broke down into weakness inside her and that was the beginning of her ending and she went on then slowly weakening to the end of her. She died away then and they all soon forgot her. The governess Madeleine Wyman was the only one to keep it in her that Mrs. Hersland once had been strong to feel herself inside her. Madeleine Wyman was married then and had a successful enough life then but always Mrs. Hersland was the most important thing, to her, that had ever been in her.
     In their younger living all the three children Martha, Alfred and David, all of them had it in them to be more or less afraid of their father when he was angry or even playing with them. They never knew then how the anger in him might drive him, they never knew when they were playing with him when it might change in him to an outburst and then they never knew how far this burst would carry him and so like most women and all children, even when they would stand up against him, the man near them, they had in their younger living, all of them, more or less fear in them. This was not in all of them then a conscious feeling. They had each one then more or less of fear in them always when with him, when he would be connected to them in their feeling, in their actual doing. They had not then this about them in them as a conscious feeling then each one of them, they did not have then in them while they were connected to him a conscious feeling of more or less fear in them until after each time with him, then they would have more or less in them a conscious feeling in them of the fear that they had always more or less then in them with him. This was more or less true then of all three of them. Later in their living when it had come to be with him that he was all full up with impatient feeling, that then there was nothing in him that was not impatient feeling, then they had not any longer much fear of him, they knew it then about him that he was filled up with impatient feeling, they knew then that the anger in him never would drive him to any last act against them. More and more then as impatient feeling was all that there was of him, less and less then did they have in them any fear of him, more and more then they could stand up against him and he would always give way before them. Martha had always a little left in her even in his latest living of this fear of him, Alfred and David then had no fear of him, they could stand up to him and win out against him with not any fear inside them of where his anger might drive him. This was true of them in his later living, when his wife was no longer in him, when nothing was in him but impatient feeling. Later it went further with him, he was shrunk away then from the outside of him, he had impatient feeling in him but it was then weakness in him he had not enough of that then to fill him, he needed others then to fill him, he was then shrunk away from the outside of him. He needed then a woman to fill him and that was the last part of his living. Martha was then with him, she had come back out of her trouble to him, she was then there taking care of him, she had still a little fear in her of him, she had not then any power in him, she could not fill him, other women did it for him, and so he kept on to his ending.
     There are many kinds of men and there are many millions made of each kind of them. The many millions of each kind of them have in them each one more or less of that which makes such a kind of them. Of the kind that Mr. David Hersland was he had a great deal of it in him, later it all turned into impatient feeling inside him, later then it became only a weakness in him, he was shrunk away from the outside of him, he needed others then inside him to fill him.
     Mr. David Hersland had it in his strongest living to be as big as all the world around him, it was in him, he was all it in him, it was to him all inside him, he was it and it was to him all always in him. This was the big feeling in him and then he was strong in beginning. This was the biggest time of his living, when this was strong in him his big feeling his being strong in beginning his keeping going even with impatient feeling in him, before all of it in him turned into impatient feeling. This was the big time in his living, and this was when his wife was still in him as a tender feeling, when his children were first beginning to have in them individual feeling. This was the time of such a big feeling in him and then he was strong in beginning. The world around him, all, every moment, in beginning, it was then and it was all in him, and he was strong then and full up with beginning.
     There are many millions of every kind of men, there are many millions of them and they have each one of them more or less in them of the kind of man they are and this makes a different being of each one of the many millions of that kind of them, that, the quantity in them of their kind of being, and the mixture in them of other kinds of being in them. There are many millions of each kind of men and other kinds of being are mixed up in each one of each kind of them but the strongest thing in each one of them is the bottom in them the kind of being in them that makes them. The bottom to every one then is the kind of being that makes him, it makes for him the kind of thinking, the way of eating, the way of drinking, the way of loving, the way of beginning, and the way of ending, in him. Other kinds of natures are in almost all men and almost all women mixed up in them with the bottom nature of them, and this mixture in them with the amount they have in them of their bottom kind of nature in them makes in each one a different being from the many millions always being made like him.
     There are many kinds of men then and there are always many millions made of each kind of them. There is a kind of them that have it in them to be as big as all the world in their feeling, to be strong in beginning, and that is their kind of men. For such a kind of men the world around them is all in a beginning, for each of them beginning is the strongest thing in them. There are many millions of such a kind of men and they have it in all of them to be strong in beginning. In some of them, and they are mostly weaker in all their living, weaker than some of the other millions made of that kind of them, some of them keep on to their last minute with beginning, they are always a little weaker in their living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning, some of such a kind of them have a great kind of bigness in them but they are weaker in their living than others of that kind of men, some of such ones of that kind of men have a great kind of feeling in them but it is in them only great in its beginning, it goes out into little things later in them, they must then have it in them to commence a new beginning to be big again inside them, they go on to their last ending in beginning, they are always a little weaker in living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning. Some of this part of that kind of men have it in them to be big in their beginning, to have then a kind of greatness in them in the feeling they have inside them with beginning, and then it turns into an empty nothing in them, sometimes it turns into a blown up feeling in them, sometimes into a full emptiness that is then all there is of them then and keeps on so inside them to their ending. They are some then who keep on to their last minute with beginning, they are always a little weaker in their living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning. There are some of the kind of men, the kind that have beginning as the strongest thing inside them, there are many of them many of the many millions of them, there are many of them who so sometime keep on going keep on going a little time with some one thing they have had in them as beginning; there are some who sometime keep on going with something they sometime had as a beginning, keep on going with it then to their ending. These are some of the many millions of such a kind of men who have it in them to be as big in their feeling as all the world around them. There are some of such a kind of men who have it in them to push some one thing through to an ending something they have sometime had as a beginning, there are some of the many millions of this kind of men who have it in them to push several things through to an ending several things that they have had as a beginning in them. There are some who have something strong inside them that pushes through to an ending what they have in them as a beginning, some have such a success in them. Some have some time almost a success in them, some have something almost as a success inside them and then it breaks down in them, some of such of them try then with a new beginning, some of such of them break down inside them and there is then an end to them. Some have the beginning feeling in them turn into impatient feeling inside them as David Hersland had it in him. All of all the many millions of such a kind of men have it in them some time to be in them as big as all the world in their feeling, they have it in them all of them to be strong in all beginning.