The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (21 page)

     And now Anna had this change in her, she had beauty in her, Cora and Bertha were having the changes she had already had in her, there was yet nothing in Cora or in Bertha that could connect them with her, with the beauty change that had come to her.
     The three girls Anna and Cora and Bertha went through their changes one after the other, now the beauty change had come in Anna, now when there was no longer in her a young girl's growing change in her beauty had come into her and to every one who knew her it was as if it had always been in her, it had no connection in her with her sisters Cora and Bertha nor with her mother. The mother had strong existence in her, she was getting older and her face and body was getting to be wooden all through her and existence was always just the same in her, it was always all there was of her. No one who knew them then the mother or Anna or Cora or Bertha, ever thought about the father, and so to every one around them then, this to every one that knew them was a family of women, there was the mother who was getting old now and a little wooden who was never important to any one who knew them who always had existence in her and that was always strong inside her, that never made any history in her, that never gave any importance to her she was existing then and existence always had been in her as it was in the useful things around her, there was no history in her, there was nothing in her to connect her with the past the present or the future, there was never any history in her there was a history of her and that the three girls were living around her, they were having the changes she had had in her, there was nothing then in her to connect her with the changes in the three girls who lived in the house with her, there was nothing in any of them that connected themselves with the others of them, there was nothing in them to connect them with the mother of them, there was nothing in the changes in them that made any one who knew them ever feel in them that she had had changes in her as the three girls had them then the three girls who were around her then, there was nothing in any of the three of them that made one feel in them that they would have in them the changes that any one of the three of them had had already in her, there was nothing to connect them with each other, they did go through their changes one after the other, there was never anything in any one of them to make any one who knew them feel that there would be changes in any one of them, a little more perhaps in Anna than in any of the others of them, in her, changes might come, in the other two of them Cora and Bertha and in the mother of them there was never any thing in them to make any one who knew them think a change would come in them, the mother was getting older now and her face and body was getting to be wooden all through her and existence was always just the same in her, it was always all that there was of her, Cora was a little wooden then, girlhood was almost finished in her, beauty had not come yet to be in her, Bertha was a little girl then, there was never in her as much existence inside her as there was in the mother or Anna or Cora, there was in her a little more existence than in the father, Anna had then beauty in her and was important then to every one who knew her, in her there was a feeling that there might come changes in her. Nobody ever thought about the father. This family to every one who knew them was a family of women.
     There were many other families then living in the little houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living, some of them were neat and made a good living like this family of women, some were not so well off in their living; some had a very straggling way of living, each one of the families of them in the small houses then had each its own way of living each its own uncertain ways of being, and this is a history of them.
     There were many kinds of families of them living in the little houses near the Hersland family then. They were each one of them different from all the others of them, they were different each one of them from all the others of them in their way of living, in their ways of earning a living, in the things that had been in their lives in the earlier days of their living, in the things that would now happen to them, they were different each one of them from all the others of them then, they were different in all the ways that they had in them, they were different in all the things that made them important, in all the things that made them uncertain inside them, they were different inside each one of them from all the others of them in religion. Some of them then had religion in them, some of them had not anything of such a thing in them, all of them who had religion in them were different from all the others of them who had religion in them too in them. One of these families then was made up of a father and two children, a boy and a girl Eddy and Lilly and the father of them, there were many uncertain things about all three of them, about the living that they had had before in them, about there not being to them a woman to be a wife to him and a mother to the two children, about the way they had money to live on when not any one of the three of them did any working, about the kind of man the father was for it was very hard to know anything about him, about the character of the two children; one thing was certain about them, they had religion in them, they were important in religion.
     The father was a tall thin man, they said of him that he was a sick man, perhaps that was true of him, no one knew how anybody knew that about him, his children never said it of him, he was a tall thin blond man, he was always smoking and that was said by every one who knew him to be because it was good for him, he was important in religion.
     There are many ways of being important in religion and this is a history of some of them, there are many men and many women and some children who have religion in them, there are many ways of having that in them. They are some who are important in religion, they are some who have religion and who are not important from the religion in them, they are many men and many women and some children who have religion in them and this is a history of some of them.
     There are many of all these kinds of them, there were some of many kinds of them in the families that the Hersland family came to know then, more and more in their living then the Hersland children came to know them came to know the many ways many men and many women and some children have religion in them, the many ways some of them have to have religion make them important inside them, the way some of them who have religion never have any of such an important feeling in them, more and more then they came to know in the families that lived there around them the meaning the religion each one of them who had religion in them meant to the one that had it inside him, for there were many of them that had it in them many men and many women and some of their children.
     This family the father and the two children Eddy and Lilly, all three of them had religion in them, there was no wife to him or mother to the children then. Slowly the Hersland children came to know them. They had it in them this man Mr. Richardson and his two children Eddy and Lilly Richardson, they had it in them all three of them to be important in religion, the father had always all his life had religion in him, he always had been important in religion, this is a history of the feeling in him, of the way his children too had it in them.
     As I was saying Mr. Richardson was a tall thin blond man, he was sick then, so everybody said who knew him though his children never said it about him, he was sick then and he was always smoking and everybody said who knew him that that was because it was good for him, good for the sickness he had in him.
     Any one who knew him would know that he had religion in him, that he always had had religion in him. Always one knew it in the two children that they had they always would have religion in them, religion with all three of them was a part of them, it was to all of them a part of their being, it was not a belief in them, it was of them like eating and sleeping and washing, for all these things and religion were part of their being, such was the nature of all three of them. Not that all three of them had the same nature in them, the three of them each one was very different from the other two of them, each one had their own nature in them, but all three had this in common that religion that eating sleeping and washing were natural to them, other things too were natural in them and all these things will come out more and more in the history of them.
     There are many men and many women and some of their children who have at some time religion in them. There are some of all these, of the many men and many women and some children who have religion in them, there are many of these that have it in them as a natural part of them, who have religion always inside them, who need religion as they do eating and sleeping and loving and there are very many who have religion in them so from the beginning of them, in some of them this religion in them makes them important inside to them, with some of them this religion in them makes them important to every one who knows them, there are some who have religion in them as a natural thing in them and have always had such a thing in them and it does not give any importance to them.
     There are some then who always have religion in them to whom it is as natural as breathing, there are some who have it in them who need it in them to complete them, there are some who have it like eating and sleeping, some who have it like loving, some who have it like washing, there are some who have it from a need in them to have it fill them when they have lost something that was once a piece in them; some get from religion an important feeling, some have it and are important to every one who knows them, some never have in it any kind of an important feeling.
     Mr. Richardson and his two children had always had religion in them, religion would always be in them like eating and sleeping and washing, not like breathing and loving. Religion was always in them, they had it always and it made all three of them important to every one that knew them.
     To the father Mr. Richardson religion was like eating and sleeping and washing, all these and religion made him a continuous being, they were not outside him, they all were in him and they made him always continue in his existing. Religion had been in him always as a part of him, it was in him like sleeping, it was in him like eating, it was of him like washing, it had always been in him as a part of him, it had always made him important to every one who knew him, it did not make him important to himself inside him any more than eating and sleeping and washing made him important to himself inside him, it was a part of his continuous existing; it did always make him important to every one who knew him.
     To some who knew him, to some who had not any kind of religion in them, to some this religion in him was to them like lying but these did not understand him, there was in religion in him no more of lying, with him, than there was in washing any more than there was in eating or sleeping, this was very hard for some of them who knew him, some of them who never had any religion in them, to understand about him but always it was true of him, religion in him was like eating and sleeping and washing, it did not make him to himself important inside him, it made him important to everyone who knew him, it was there and they knew it in him, it was in him and whatever he should be ever found out in doing that would never make it different in him that religion was real inside him, that it was in him like his eating and sleeping and washing, that it never was, in him, lying any more than eating and sleeping and washing were lying. It was a part of him as they were a part of him, they were needed every day to remake him, to keep him going on in existing, so it was with religion and this in him made him important to every one who knew him.
     The religion inside him, as I was saying, kept him existing, it was not that it filled a need in him, it was not that he used it in his living, it kept him continuous and existing as did his eating and sleeping. Religion was to him like eating and sleeping, religion was to him also like washing and it was this in him, the religion like washing that made him important to every one who knew him. Religion was to him as eating and sleeping was in him, religion was in him as washing was to him and this religion in him made him important to every one who knew him.
     Washing is very common, almost every one does some washing, with some it is only for cleansing, with some it is a refreshing, with some a ceremonial thing that makes them important to every one who knows them. In those who have religion in them as washing is to some of them who make it a distinction in them, in some who have religion in them as washing is to some who do it as a necessary part of their daily living, such have from it a distinction; washing is not a natural thing to happen like eating or sleeping, washing is not like eating or sleeping, it has in it a distinction and to them who do it every day as a natural thing to them, they have it in them to be important to every one who knows them, when religion is in any one as this washing is in some who have it in them, then such a one is important to every one who knows him.
     Eating and sleeping are not like loving and breathing. Washing is not like eating and sleeping. Believing is like breathing and loving. Religion can be believing, it can be like breathing, it can be like loving, it can be like eating or sleeping, it can be like washing. It can be something to fill up a place when some one has lost out of them a piece that it was natural for them to have in them.
     To be continuous in existing by an every day eating and sleeping is like what some have in religion, then it is not from a need in them, it is from the natural way they have in them to be continuous in their existing. Feeding and religion with such of them is every day natural to them. Washing is different from eating and sleeping. It is natural to some and it makes such ones important to every one that knows them. Some have religion in them as some have washing and they are always important to every one who knows them. To have washing as natural to them is some distinction to those who have it as natural in them, to have religion in them to be in them as washing is to some, those to whom it is natural from the beginning to have religion in them in such a way as some have washing is to make of them who have religion in any such a way natural to them important to every one who knows them.