The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (99 page)

     This one that I am now beginning describing had murky passionate resisting being but its action in him was very intermittent and it was at different times in very different conditions in him. Sometimes it was in him in a fairly concentrated condition and it made of him some one very quick and sensitive and charming and a musician, sometimes it was very quiet in him and then sometimes it burst out as uncontrollable temper in him. Twice in his life it lead to loving and both times then it made trouble for him for he was not strong enough in persisting to be able to keep on owning the ones he needed for loving. This one was not very successful in living.
     This one was very successful in living, this one that I am now beginning describing. This one had this being not at all as murky not at all as engulfing, he had it in him as efficient emotion, as active practical reasonably aggressive resistant action, as steadily and not too sensitively in him, as warmly affectionate and rationally self-understanding. He was a little sentimental and this was all the weakness there was in him. The being in him was perfectly adjusted to steadily succeeding in living. Sometime perhaps there will be a very long history written of him and four others very like him, perhaps in the history of David Hersland and George Dehning.
     This then has been, a little, descriptions of six kinds of being that are kinds of the kinds of them that Alfred Hersland was in living. As I was saying of the kind of being there is in Alfred Hersland there is every kind of variation. There has been now made very short descriptions of six of them. This is now time then for the really beginning describing the living in Alfred Hersland from his beginning.
     As I was saying he was not the oldest of the three Hersland children. Every one knows this now of him. He was the oldest son but not the oldest one of the children in the family living. Being the oldest son and not the oldest of the children has always a certain effect on one having such a position in a family living. That is pretty nearly certain. Alfred Hersland then as I was saying was the oldest son but not the oldest of the children. Martha Hersland was the oldest of the three children. There has been already written a complete history of her living and her being, a pretty nearly completed history of her. She was the oldest of the three Hersland children, Alfred Hersland was three years younger. This is now the beginning of a complete history of his living, the beginning of the regular description of the being he had in him. To begin again then, to begin now with him, to begin now again trying to describe him as a quite young one, as beginning in his living. To begin then.
     Alfred Hersland, Alfy as every one then called him was as a young one of the living of poor people living in small houses in a part of Gossols where the Herslands were the only rich people living. Alfy was of the living of poor people in his daily living then as was his older sister Martha then and his brother who was then quite a little one. All three of the Hersland children were of this living for a good many years in their beginning. It was different in Alfred than it was in Martha, than it was in David Hersland, that I have already been saying. In Alfred it was his daily living then, it was nearly all the living then in him. It was half country half city living. Alfy knew very many poor people then in his young living. In a way then he was then completely of them, completely of their living then. He Was different in his living with them in a way than Martha and David were. He was completely then as a young one of the living of poor people, a half city half country poor people living. He was always then with these kind of men and women and children.
     All three of the Hersland children Martha and Alfred and David were in their young living more of the living of the poor people living near them than they were of their own family living then. Each one of them was in his or her way almost completely in their young living of the living of poor people in a part of Gossols where the Herslands were the only people who were rich of all those living there. All three of them Martha, Alfred and David were then in their young living of the half country half city living of poor people living in that part of Gossols where the Herslands then were living. Each one of the three Hersland children had each one her or his own being in her or in him. Each one was very different from the other two of them, Martha had one kind of being, and Alfred had one kind of being and David had a kind of being and the being in each one was different from that in each of the other two of them.
     Each one of the three of them the Hersland children were then in their young living each in their own way with their own being in them of the living of people living in small houses and being in feeling half city half country men and women and children. All three of them of the Hersland children had this living inside them and around them then when they were beginning living, for a number of years each one of them, and in each one it was a living that was in them in each one different in feeling from each of the other two of them. Each one then of the three of them were freely living when they were each one of them young ones with people living near them. Martha was of the people near her as I was saying and in her as I was saying then she was in a way completely of them and completely not of them, she was of them completely in her daily living and in her feeling, she was completely not of them because of the future living that would be a different one from anything that any of them would naturally be having. Martha was in a way completely in her daily living completely in her feeling all through her young living of the being of the people living in small houses near them, of the women and the men and the children and then later she was more and more completely not of them because of the living that would be her natural future living. She was of them in her feeling, she was completely cut off from them from the future living that would be natural to her in their feeling. She had not then in her feeling in her younger living any feeling of living that was different from their living in them only she had in her her future living and so then she was to them completely cut off from them. She had not in her in her younger living very much almost not any feeling of the living, the rich right American living that would have been a natural living for her to be having. She was to her feeling like those with whom she was mostly then entirely in her young living living. She was pretty nearly altogether like them then in her feeling, she had more money and she did not have to work to earn any and that was a natural thing in her living and then in her feeling she was completely of them and this was in her all of her young living. In Alfred Hersland it was a little different, he really did more things with them than Martha ever did with them. He did everything with them all through his young living but always somehow he had it in him that his mother never was cut off in her feeling from being part of rich right American living. This was not in him as thinking, his mother was not then important to his feeling, she was not then really in any way very important to him, his father was a rich man, every one who knew him knew this about him, Alfred Hersland was completely living the living half city half country of people around him, somehow always he had it in him that his mother was part of rich right American living, this was in him as a kind of realisation of rich surfaces in aesthetic feeling, this was in him and his father was a rich man and always he was completely doing everything with those boys and girls and men and women who were living in that part of Gossols where he was living. He did everything with them, he was completely living with them, he did everything they were doing, he did everything with them and they with him, he was completely then living with them.
     He was doing all his daily living with the children and the women and the men living in small houses in that part of Gossols where the Herslands were the only rich people living. The Herslands were rich people of rich American living as the natural way of living. In a way Alfred had never had any real experiencing of this kind of way of living, he really did not know very much of any one who was living this kind of living, sometimes some with their children came to see the Herslands and then the Hersland children had to play and talk with these then these children living the rich American living, and the Hersland children mostly were not interested in them, Alfred had not any liking for them, he liked to have all the fruit picked even before it was quite ripe before it was really ready for picking so that those children who were coming to visit them should not be using their trees to pick fruit and enjoy it. Alfred never liked it that these children should be at home in his orchard, picking fruit and eating it and taking it home with them, he liked very well picking fruit and climbing trees, his own trees with those children that were in his daily living, he never did like it that children coming with their parents on a Sunday visit well to do American families should come and pick fruit in his orchard and enjoy such things then when they came occasionally to visit the Herslands in a part of Gossols where not any other rich people excepting the Herslands were living. Once when some of them were coming, Alfred with David and Martha to help picked all the fruit although most of it was green then, it was mostly cherries just then, picked it all every bit of it and put it in the barn to ripen and he did this so that the children coming to visit them should not be climbing the trees and helping themselves as if it were in an orchard of their own. He made David and Martha have such a feeling too in them, it was a mixed feeling in Alfy then, he was then just beginning to feel in him responsibility for family living, he was just beginning then to feel in him that he was an American citizen, he was just beginning to feel in him then his daily living and liking that realisation that he was then beginning to have in him. He was beginning then a little dimly to have a realisation of the fact that his mother never in her feeling had been really cut off from rich right American living. He was just then completely living with the people living near him, he was doing all his living with them, living was interesting to him then, he was more and more then beginning to be really living his living with their living. He had in him not any disliking for the rich American living but he did not want the children of that living to make themselves too much at home in his garden in his orchard with the flowers and the fruit that was part of his daily living then.
     Each one of the three Hersland children had each their own way of living and feeling their early living. This is now to be a description of the way Alfred lived and felt his early living.
     As a boy Alfred Hersland, Alfy as they called him was doing everything he was doing with these boys, those children living near him. He did everything he did with them, mostly he did everything they did in living, he did everything he did then in his daily living with them. He was then completely of them in doing everything he did in his daily living with them. As I was saying he did mostly everything they did in their living. He certainly did everything he did in his daily living with them. He was of them then. He was of them, Martha Hersland, David Hersland, all three of the Hersland children were of them the people in small houses near them in their early living. Each one of them, of the three Hersland children was of them in the way it was natural for that one to be of people around her around him. Each one of the three of them certainly was of the children and women and men who were their neighbors then in all the young living each one of them had then. Each one of them certainly then was of the daily living of these then, the people near them more than any one of the three of them were then of their own proper family living. Martha Hersland was pretty completely of the living of the people living near her when she was a young one, more than she was then of her mother's or her father's or her brother's living then. Alfred Hersland, Alfy as these then all called him did everything he did in his younger living with them with these people near him. David Hersland also was of them the people near him but then he was of every one in a way and mostly always of himself inside him and soon now there will be a beginning to him. Each one then of them certainly did have their young living in company with the people living near them then and certainly each one of them had their living inside in them in the way it was natural for such a kind of them as each one of them was inside them to have it in them. Martha then had it in her in her kind of way of having it in her. She was of them these people in her younger living. Alfred, Alfy as they called him, had it in him then when he was a boy and also then when he was a little older as it was natural for him to have it in him. He certainly then when he was a boy lived all his daily living with them, mostly then he did what they did in living, certainly he did everything he did with them, this was true of him when he was a boy, it was pretty nearly true, of him when he was a little older, it was more or less true of him all the time he lived there near them.
     The grandfather of the Hersland children Mr. Hissen had it in him to be completely certain that when he would be a dead one he would be dead completely dead, of that he was completely certain, he was so a complete one, concrete and generalised conviction was the same in him, he was in himself then to himself always in him always all there was of religion, he was the grandfather of the Hersland children, he was the grandfather of Alfred and David Hersland, he was the grandfather of Martha Hersland but she was not related to him in being, he was the grandfather of Alfred and David Hersland, they were related to him by their being, he was the grandfather of Alfred Hersland, that is certain, this is now beginning to be a description of Alfred Hersland and the being in him and the living that came out of and to him.
     Alfred Hersland was a boy and living then with for him poor people, children, men and women. He did everything that he was then doing in his living with them, he was then completely of them, he was then completely with them when he was a boy and among them. Later when he was still doing everything he was doing with them, when he was still doing mostly everything they were doing with them, it was then a little different in him, he was pretty completely then doing with them everything that they were doing, he was doing it pretty completely entirely then his life with them, he was pretty completely then almost entirely then doing with them everything that they, older girls and boys, and men and women in the small houses near the Hersland ten acre place were then doing, he was then completely doing and doing pretty nearly entirely everything they were doing and doing it with, them and it was a little a different thing in him than when he was a younger one, already he had then a feeling like a feeling for quality of richness and finish in anything, he had already a little beginning of feeling in him that his family was not really then never had been cut off from the rich American living, the natural living for them. He did not know it then and the little he knew then was not pleasant to him, he did then mostly entirely everything those living in small houses near him were doing and he did it with them, he did not know then really anything of this rich right American living that was the natural Hersland way of living, he knew nothing of this then, he did not really think of such a thing, a little he had in him then a little family feeling about managing his sister and being a good citizen, his mother was not then important to him, his father was a rich man he knew it then but he did not then really feel this in him, he had not any realisation of this then in him, and always then he was doing everything and with them, very completely indeed then what these people were doing who lived near him and always then he did not know then and the little he knew of them who had it in them, right rich American living was not pleasant to him and yet in him beginning was a little feeling that some way somehow he was inside him a being never really cut off from rich right American living. When he was a younger one this was entirely completely not in him, a little later when he was completely doing everything the ones near him were doing and very much with them and with the feeling of them and himself as of them in him still somewhere in him there was in him what his mother had in her as always there inside her that he was of a being that had it as a natural thing that nothing in him was cut off from rich right American living, and always then he was completely living with them the people near him living their living having their feeling being completely then of their living in his acting, in his living, in his thinking, in his feeling. Each one of the Hersland children had their own being in them each one of them had a different way from the two other ones of having the living with the people near them in them. Martha had her being, had her feeling in their living, had her way of being completely of them the people near her, in her younger living. Alfred had his being in him, he had his way of feeling the living he was doing in his young living. He certainly was doing everything these near him were doing and doing it with them and feeling it as they were feeling in it then and this is now then some history of his living then, of his daily living then.