The Girl and Her Religion Part 3

But there is one word which must be stricken from the vocabulary of parents, teachers and friends, who hope to awaken the indifferent girl.

It is the word _hopelessly. Hopelessly_ dull, _hopelessly_ bad, _hopelessly indifferent_! Experience teaches that these must go. No teacher has a hopeless pupil, no mother has a hopeless daughter. One may regard the indifferent girl as a difficult problem but never a hopeless one. Behind the indifference and the don't-care is the _real girl_ and one must with patience and sympathy find _her_.

VII

THE GIRL WHO WORs.h.i.+PS THE TWIN IDOLS

The twin idols that accept with all the complacency of an ancient Buddha the devotion of more wors.h.i.+pers than any church or creed can claim are Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure. Not sane fas.h.i.+on which helps make men and women attractive and clothes them with neatness and care, protects them by courtesies, and s.h.i.+elds them by conventionalities, but _mad_ fas.h.i.+on.

Not real pleasure that fills eye with delight and days with happiness that will be remembered even when one is old and days are dark and hard but _mad_ pleasure, the thief and robber.

What costly sacrifices are offered every hour of the day and night to the twin idols. When men and women away back in the dim past laid their children in the hands of Baal they made their weird music, sang their wild songs and shouted aloud that they might drown the appeal of the sacrifice. The dark ages have pa.s.sed. It is the enlightened age--and yet with music and shoutings, weird dancings and songs men and women today drown the appeal of the costly sacrifice laid on the altar before Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE WORs.h.i.+PS PLEASURE AND FAs.h.i.+ON]

There in her room sits Ellen Gregg, that is she used to be Ellen, she is now deeply offended if friends forget to call her Eleanor. She is an ardent wors.h.i.+per of the Idols. When she was twelve and fourteen she was a frank, contented, happy girl, simple in her tastes and able to have a good time in most inexpensive ways. A trolley ride to a park and supper under the trees she looked forward to for days and enjoyed in retrospect, until a trip to the lake, a concert, a visit to the picture galleries, or a shopping tour down town where she spent the twenty-five cents she had earned and saved, gave her another happy day to remember.

Eleanor is now eighteen and she has been at work for two years. She needs plain becoming dresses, plenty of s.h.i.+rt waists, sensible, pretty shoes, rubbers, a rain-coat, a suit, two becoming hats, for it is the beginning of winter. But she has none of these things. She has just been kneeling before the altar and has laid her costly sacrifice of common sense and comfort, perhaps of health, there in the presence of Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure. Her face is troubled as she sits there in her room for the memory of her mother's reproof and her brother's disapproval stings a little. But in a moment she looks toward the bed. Lying upon it, smoothed out carefully, is the result of the sacrifice--a thin silk gown of palest blue draped with a fragile chiffon, trimmed and caught up with crystal drops and tiny rosebuds. It is a pretty thing. Besides it is a spotless white outing coat, rough, and to quote the words of the clerk who helped her select it, "exceedingly modish." There are pale blue stockings and pumps. She did hesitate about the pumps but they were there. The hat was there too. She hoped to go perhaps to two dances, she knew she should go to the theater, for she already had an invitation and there might be another. Besides that she intended to go herself and invite one of the girls if she were able to get all the things paid for before the theater season was over. Last year everything got shabby so quickly and "looked like a rag," before the season was over but she hoped for better luck this time. She rose and put her new possessions away very carefully in the little closet and boxes and turned to the mirror. The hair dresser had shown her a new way to dress her hair and she tried it now herself. After a long time she met with fair success.

She did not call the family to see the result, for there might be more words of disapproval and though they would not influence her in the least still it was a bore to listen to them. The new arrangement was very uncomfortable and it did seem strange to be apparently without ears but she was an earnest devotee and what it pleased the idol to dictate, that she did. Next she tried the new concoctions for cheeks and eyebrows. The result pleased her. She called to her mother to ask the time and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour called back that she was dead tired and would go to bed. When she hung up her skirt she was dismayed to see how worn it was. She had paid for the style in it, not for the material. She did not go to sleep directly though she had a right to be tired, for she had to get up very early each morning and she was obliged to stand all day at her work. But she was troubled. Even the pleasure of possessing the clothes so carefully protected in the closet could not take away the anxiety produced by the conscious need of rubbers and a winter suit. But at last the poor little devotee, the ardent wors.h.i.+per of the twin idols, worn out by thinking of it all fell asleep.

Over on Blank Street, in another part of town that day, another wors.h.i.+per and her devoted mother had been talking over plans for the future. Both were "climbers," at least they thought it was climbing.

They had social ambitions and it was whispered by their enemies that they intended, at whatever cost to enter the inner circle of those who wors.h.i.+ped the idols. Last year the young girl who wanted to go to college had "come out." It had been a wonderful season but it had left her with a pale face and dark circles under her lovely eyes. The rest cure had done much for her but her physician had said another season in town would undo all that had been done. Her mother was loath to believe it. She had always been able to dismiss her husband's arguments and had done so successfully the night before when he plead for a year of roughing it in the west, society forgotten and the things of nature for amus.e.m.e.nt and fun. "If we drop out now," she told her daughter, "all is lost." And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in learning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism, the harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and fowls of the barnyard figured, so the first step was to secure a teacher who would correct her errors and give her skill in the performances which had robbed so many of her friends of all reserve and had taught them the abandonment of motion.

She had tried to take a nap that afternoon but sleep would not come though she obeyed all the rules for capturing it. Her father's blood was in her veins and even her training had failed to obliterate all of the hard sense which had helped him pa.s.s his neighbors in the race for money which should win the coveted t.i.tle "A Success."

She did not like the dances, she knew she was not equal to the round of varied functions that lay before her. But she was a wors.h.i.+per--she blindly followed Fas.h.i.+on--she bowed in the presence of Pleasure--and at last sighing wearily, murmured softly, "Well, there is no way out.

Mother has set her heart on it and one might as well die as to be out of everything"--she laid her sacrifice upon the altar, took up a book and stopped thinking.

It is easy to think that she is but one, and perhaps the great exception, that because she is not physically strong she shrinks from the long gay season. But she is only one of many, some very young and strong, and some in the twenties who have hearts and find them unsatisfied, who long to be free but held in the grip of the twin idols at last bow down and wors.h.i.+p.

In the home of a shoemaker where food was coa.r.s.e but plentiful and where the loose cas.e.m.e.nts and cracks in walls and doors defied all efforts to keep out the air, grew up a little rosy-cheeked, black-haired girl. When she was fourteen she was tall for her age, her black hair was abundant and beautiful, her large, dark eyes snapped and sparkled in laughter or in anger. She went to work. As yet she had thought little about the twin idols. Before the year had pa.s.sed, she knelt before them. At the end of the second year she had offered in their name, truth and honesty in exchange for furs, a silver purse and a beautiful necklace. Her parents unable to speak English, ready to believe that anything was possible in the new land suspected nothing. Before the close of the third year, when she was but seventeen, in mad devotion to Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure, she had laid herself, a living sacrifice upon the altar.

In the same city where she had followed so madly in pursuit of pleasure and dress, in a comfortable home upon one of the new avenues where young shade trees, modern houses, neatly trimmed lawns, all spoke of the young people just starting out for themselves, there lived a family trying in vain to find happiness. Both were young, she only twenty, he twenty-two.

She wors.h.i.+ped the idols. He wors.h.i.+ped her. She had social ambitions. She needed money to carry them out. He got it as fast as he could and he was doing pretty well. But it was not enough. That night they had said bitter words to each other, then had repented and he had begged her to be careful, to try for a while to do without unnecessary things for his sake and said that she was more beautiful than any of the more richly dressed women he knew and that she ought to be content. She promised to try. But it was of no use. She heard the call of the idols. She could not resist and bowed down and wors.h.i.+ped them. Before the year had pa.s.sed she had plunged into hopeless debt and in her mad devotion sacrificed her husband with all his hopes and honest ambitions upon the altar. The music, the lights, the dresses, the compliments, the promise of opening doors into the society in which she wanted to s.h.i.+ne, for a time drowned the sight of his suffering and pain. Then suddenly he yielded to temptation, was discovered taking money that was not his and the G.o.ds of fas.h.i.+on and pleasure forgot them both; the doors of society closed and she was left with nothing but her bitter thoughts. It was a costly sacrifice but a common one which the Idols accept again and again.

Hardly two blocks below was another home with its lawn, its flowers, its neat window boxes and its young trees. There in his nursery was a little two-year-old. He stretched out his hand to his mother and cried when she pa.s.sed through the hall and down stairs. He had not been well for some days and missed his old nurse who had been dismissed for a slight offense the week before. He did not like the new nurse. His mother did not know much about her. She seemed kind and she was very courteous in her manner. The mother was going in her friend's machine, out to the club-house for bridge. She was a little late and could not stop though the child had looked very pitiful and rather pale. He still cried despite the nurse's warnings, coaxings and threats. At last she grew impatient, seized him and shook him until there was no breath left to scream, laid him on his little bed and left the room. After a while soft, heart-broken baby sobs came from the tired child and he lay still as she had bidden him.

At the club women dressed in all the extremes of fas.h.i.+on, laughed and chatted or grew tense and strained as they exchanged their cards. Over in one corner some of the younger women blew curls of smoke into the air. The baby's mother sat there.

It seemed very lonely to the little boy lying in his nursery. The sobs ceased, the baby grew interested in life once more, climbed over the side of the bed, slipped to the floor, softly opened the door into the hall. His eyes were swollen and he was weak from the shaking and the strain of the day and when he reached the s.h.i.+ning staircase, his foot slipped.

The nurse's face grew pale when she picked up the unconscious child. The doctor said he would live but the spine seemed to be injured and the full result of the fall he could not predict.

While they were bending anxiously over him, he opened his eyes and said "Muvver." Just then she entered the hall and they could hear the congratulatory words of her friend. She had won. Then she started up the stairs. Let us draw the curtain, for on the altar of Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure _a mother_ has offered as a sacrifice, _her child_.

You who have read this chapter have been looking with me upon a series of rapidly moving pictures. Perhaps they have seemed too dramatic as they have pa.s.sed. But they are not fiction--they picture facts. They are not in the past. The same scenes are being repeated now all over our country and across the sea. No one can number the wors.h.i.+pers of the Twin Idols and no one can estimate the awful cost of the devotion of their followers.

It is right that a girl should enjoy pretty clothes and desire them. It is right that she should spend a fair part of her income on the necessary gowns for parties and pleasures. It is right that girls should seek pleasure and enjoy life to the full. It is right that young mothers keep their youth and enjoy the society of their friends. But when girlhood erects an altar and in the presence of Fas.h.i.+on and Pleasure sacrifices time and strength, money, honesty, thrift and virtue, then it is _sin_ and the individual and society must suffer. At this present moment in our country, as in the ages past in nations and with peoples that are now being forgotten, girlhood is wors.h.i.+ping the Twin Idols and one is compelled to ask himself if the final result will be the same.

It is not alone the rich girl who bows the knee in the presence of Fas.h.i.+on and offers her best to Pleasure, the poor girl also wors.h.i.+ps. In the mult.i.tude that bow are all sorts and conditions of girls.

We wait for a prophet. A prophet that shall awaken womanhood and girlhood and show them that to be well dressed means to be appropriately dressed, that extravagant overdressing is clear evidence of the lack of good breeding and good taste; that those who indulge in clothes which they cannot afford and those who make of themselves living models for the exhibition of the latest extravagances, both proclaim the unworthy station in life where they _truly_ belong.

We need a prophet who shall awaken womanhood and girlhood to see that the wild rush for sensational and unhealthful pleasures has always meant one thing--final inability to enjoy, the day when all pleasures pall.

Would that the prophet might come, and speedily, that our girls might stand up on their feet free, no more slaves to Fas.h.i.+on or servants of Pleasure. Free--their faces clear, tinted and rosy with the keen joy of living. Free--their eyes bright with health and energy. Free from the lines of worry that stamp the faces of all those who yield to the demands of the Twin Idols.

It will be a great day when the leaders and wors.h.i.+pers of Fas.h.i.+on and the devotees of Pleasure blow the trumpets and cry aloud, "Bow down,"

and the ma.s.s of girlhood and womanhood, beautiful, strong, healthful, loving life, answer and say, "We will not bow down, nor wors.h.i.+p." When that day comes--and it will come--the reign of the Twin Idols shall cease.

VIII

THE GIRL WHO DRIFTS

More than two years have pa.s.sed since I met one of the girls returning from a girls' conference where the depths of her nature, unstirred before had been touched and quickened into life. A pa.s.sion to serve had been awakened in her and as she told me of her new visions and desires I confess that I feared for her. Here she was, the embodiment of all the charm and power of youth with a soul on fire to accomplish great things, and the temperament which does _not_ accomplish great things. When the train stopped she was met by her father, a keen, common sense, average business man who often expressed the wish that his daughter would "get busy and do something." She went home to a mother large hearted and self-sacrificing, proud of her attractive daughter and doing so much for her that little remained for her to do for herself. On Sunday she went to a formal, dignified, self-satisfied church; she attended a Sunday-school where the teacher made the lesson interesting without requiring much from the girls; she spent the afternoon with a book, the piano, and the relatives and friends who came to call. Church, home, friends, seemed content with her just as she was. She meant to do so much and to some of her friends she told with great enthusiasm her plans for future work. But the days pa.s.sed as other days had pa.s.sed. What became of her pa.s.sion to serve, to share in the work of making life easier and happier? What became of the cry in her heart for something to do to express the new life which had fired her soul? They died. Slowly the fire was quenched by inaction, the embers grew cold, the longings were quieted, life went on as before--so easy it is to _drift_.

She has the sympathy of every one of us, the girl who "_means to_," for we also intend to do, and fail. Perhaps she learns from our vocabularies the words and phrases which so often appear in her own. "Tomorrow," she says, and "I am going to," "I intend" and "I mean some day to." She enjoys the present but all that she hopes to _do_ she puts into the future. She does not realize at first that the future always has a day of reckoning and that suddenly when one least expects it, the future meets her in the present and says, "How about this and this and this which you were going to do? The time is past. What now?" Sometimes with bitter tears, often with deep regret, always in half guilty fas.h.i.+on the girl answers, "Well, I really meant to do it, only--"

If the drifting girl who "meant to" is to be strengthened in character she must be helped to subst.i.tute "I have done it" for "I really meant to do it."

The girl who continually "means to" and seldom "does," is usually emotional, responsive, lovable and irresponsible. I remember a most interesting teacher in the last year of the grammar school who had just such a girl in her room. The girl admired her teacher greatly, and whenever she expressed the desire to read a new book, to have the cla.s.s see a fine picture, to use certain material for the lesson in drawing or painting, the girl promised that the book should be brought, the picture would gladly be loaned by her father, the poppies or tulips she would get from her garden. Almost never was the promise fulfilled, still she continued to promise. One afternoon her teacher talked with her after school and showed her a list of twenty-one things she had promised to do and had not done. "I know you do not mean to be untruthful, but you are," the teacher told her. "Whenever you promise now to do a thing, the other girls smile. You wanted to be chairman of the luncheon committee the other day and did not receive a single vote, not because the girls dislike you, but because they cannot depend upon you. You always intend to do things but they are not done. You--" The girl interrupted:

"Twenty-one promises to you, broken!" she exclaimed. "Twenty-one! I shall keep every one of them. Let me see them." Then she burst into tears and the old excuse fell almost unconsciously from her lips, "I meant to, I really meant to."

Sympathetically, but without being spared, the girl was shown that the promises could not be kept now; the time had pa.s.sed and the things had been done by others. The inconvenience and unhappiness caused by many of these unkept promises were explained to her and the teacher asked that for one week she should make her no promises and that she should not volunteer to do anything for her.

"Oh, but I want to do things for you. I must!" she cried with all the pa.s.sion of her emotional nature.

"What I want most," the teacher responded, "is that you _do_ things, but say nothing."

The girl tried faithfully. Her love and admiration for the teacher furnished a strong motive, and the week showed a real gain. One day her mother called at the school. She said that her daughter had made a strange request of her. "She asked me," said the mother, "to compel her to do everything she promised to do, or said she was going to do and to punish her if she failed. I asked her to explain her strange request and learned of the struggle she has been making. It seems to me she is too young to a.s.sume responsibility to the extent of actually doing everything she just casually says she is willing to do or intends to do.

We all fail to carry out our intentions."

The teacher helped that mother to see that a girl of fourteen is old enough to begin the struggle to establish the habit of _doing_ what one _means_ to do, and she realized her mistake. Together they decided to encourage the girl to refrain for the time being from making promises.

Meanwhile they made requests for such services as seemed perfectly possible for her to render, being careful that but little time need elapse between the request and its required fulfilment, in order that action might follow rapidly the resolution to act. In the months that followed, the girl's effort to do what she said she would do, furnished many a scene of both tragedy and comedy, but slowly she gained and in two years the result was marvelous. A girl who because of her dependableness will be of great value in home, school and community is being made by the sane, wise sympathy of mother and teacher.

The girl who drifts because she "means to" and fails, is easy to love and easy to pardon for things left undone. But those interested in her welfare will spare neither time nor thought in the effort to help her gain the power to make connection between the intention to do and the actual doing.

When one observes carefully any large cosmopolitan group of young women, she sees some with hard faces, some marked by suffering, many marked by selfishness and fretfulness and many more showing dissatisfaction and unhappiness, and her mind goes back involuntarily to the fairy story with the mirror which showed "the girl you meant to be."

The contrast between what many a girl meant to be and what she is, reveals a real tragedy.

Many a girl drifts through life always meaning to do--to be, yet missing the joy of accomplishment because she does not summon her will to her aid, and often because friends are too lenient and parents too thoughtless to make her see to what failure and unhappiness, meaning to do and never doing will invariably lead one. If a girl who some day "means to" should read this chapter let her seize at once the only life line which can ever save her. It is made up of three short words which are relentless, but if she obeys they will prove her salvation. _Do it now_, they read and for the girl who "intends to," there is no other way of escape.

There is another type of girl who drifts. She is explained by the phrase, "aimlessly drifting about." She is the girl who does not know where she is going. She has no objective. Often parents, teachers and friends have neglected to help her centralize her thought upon one thing which she desires to do and she has not seen for herself that while trying to do everything one accomplishes nothing. Many times she is a girl of varied talents and puts all her effort first upon this thing then upon that but never works long enough to complete anything or learn to do it well. In school she changes her courses just as often as it is permitted, in business she changes her position never remaining long enough in any one place to qualify for a better. If at home she drifts from settlement work to domestic science, from domestic science to a dancing club and the golf links. She gives herself to the current and the wind and _drifts_. She needs an anchor. She needs the strong will of another to steady her while she is developing her own. She needs a great ideal to guide her and hold her with the magnetic power of some North Star. She needs to have her ambition aroused and to be made to believe that she, as truly as any one in the world has a "call to serve." She needs to have great things expected and demanded of her.