The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (78 page)

     Mr. Hersland as I was saying had in him independent dependent being. As I was saying more and more in his living he was full up with impatient being. As I was saying he had it in him to always be strong in beginning, to be very strong in attacking and then he would go another way to another beginning never knowing that he had not finished to really winning, never knowing this in him, not really even when in his later living his children when they were angry at the impatient being then in him and not then being any longer afraid of him knowing then that he never would be carried through to the end of the anger in him told it to him. He never really knew it in him but this was the being in him as I was saying. He never knew the being in his daughter Martha until she in his old age living managed for him, until she came back out of her troubles to them and then he was beginning already to be shrunk from the outside of him and she was then not interesting to him. She never really was interesting to him. He never knew it in her that she had independent dependent being in her, because for him she was not thorough in anything, she was always beginning and never really beginning anything. This was in her for him when she was a little one and then when she was beginning her education it was annoying to him for always he was really beginning and always she was almost beginning and then when he was changing she was then really beginning and then it was to him in her stupid being, that she was nervous then and not finishing anything, not thorough in anything. His feeling was very different with his two sons who each in their way were annoying to him but Martha was annoying to him being as she was of the same kind of being as the being that was in him.
     Martha as I was saying always was a whole one, as I was saying when she was a young one she was of the living of the people living in small houses near the Hersland family then. She was completely of their living then, the governess the Hersland family had living with them was sometimes troublesome to Martha in her living but only one of them the last one Madeleine Wyman was ever really troublesome and that was when she was trying as I was saying to carry out in the children and mostly on Martha who was a girl and older the ideas of education Mr. Hersland had then in him. It was then that Mr. Hersland came to a realisation that Martha was not really thorough in anything. Martha was hard-working and did well enough in her schooling but when he wanted her to have disciplining, to make strong beginnings in french and German and music and swimming and exercising and dancing, as I was saying she was always a little mixed up in beginning and then had a nervous confusion from the changing and Madeleine Wyman was thorough and annoying to her and then Martha was completely of them the poorer people near them. As I was saying Martha was interesting enough then to every one but not really very interesting to any one knowing her then. As I was saying she was more completely of them the poorer people near them when the governess Madeleine Wyman was living with the Hersland family in the house with them and for some years longer than she was of any other living, was more of them in her feeling, in her living, in her understanding of all living but always then all of them the poorer people living in small houses near them were having things happen to them, the young boys the young girls whom she knew then which was not of her future living to have happen to her then and always neither she nor they knew this in them but always it was there between them and Martha was then there in living neither bird or beast or good red herring and she did not know it nor did any one else know it of her then.
     So then Martha's young living was very confusing to her then but she did not know it in her then. She had in her as I was saying independent dependent being, she had attacking as her natural way of fighting but as I was saying she was only a little more concentrated in her being than that other one I was describing and so when she was in motion except in jerks there was not really very much action, there was very much nervous being and confusion and this was in her stupid being and always all her living she was the same one the same whole one I have been just describing.
     This then was the young living in her. It was well enough but rather confused inside her. Confusion always was strong in her. All of her when it was in motion just was sort of knocking together, and that was mostly all the active being in her and that was to many who knew her obstinacy and resisting in her and to her father it was that she was never thorough. Sometimes there was stronger reaction for a moment in her, anger, or a deep commotion for something that was a disgrace to some one or to her and then she was a little more than the whole one that she mostly just was and was mostly to every one.
     This was then the being in her. Always then she was not very interesting to any one knowing her. Her mother had never a very lively realisation of her. Her mother more and more was external to her when she Martha was to her mother no longer inside her. Not that Mrs. Hersland ever knew this in her, always she had a feeling of having had and having her as a child as part of her and always she had her dresses and her hats and all as important to her but as I was saying Martha was then when she was growing completely as completely as there was really living being in her of them the poor people living in the small houses near the Hersland family then. As I was saying later there was a difference, that they were having living that could not be in one going to be having a different future from that that any of them would have as natural to them. Earlier when she was a young one, yes there was a little difference between them for she had a father and a mother to them and these other children could be conscious of the father and the mother of her and she had a governess living in the house with her and servants and all that that made her in ways of living, but mostly to them then the poorer people living in the small houses those that knew her then they did not feel the difference to be a difference that in any way cut her off from the living natural to them only they could sometimes be conscious of the mother or the father or the governess or the servants when they were with her, when they were not with her, not from anything in her but from their being really existing the father and the mother and the governess and the servants of the Hersland family. So then in her younger living she was not cut off from them by her future for the children she was then knowing were young then and not having any such feeling. Almost not at all then was she in any way cut off from them. Sometimes they as I was saying, from hearing other people or their parents talking, from seeing them or from something that Martha said in talking could be conscious of Martha's mother or father or governess or servants living in the house with her and so they might be just by a shade cut off from her but mostly then she was completely of them the children and the poor people living near them. As I was saying she was really then, Martha, not very interesting to any one knowing her then. She was completely of them then the people living in small houses near the Hersland family then. She had no feeling in her of a different kind of living in her. All the active living there was in her was of the living of the poorer people near her.
     As I was saying when she was quite a young one there was not any feeling in any of them, not in the parents of these children then any feeling that she was in her feeling cut off from them by not being able to have some things happen to her that could not happen to any one having the kind of future that was the natural kind of future living for her. As I was saying a little such a feeling came when she was somewhat older, when she was older with them, but in her younger living there was not in herself not in any one of them, a little perhaps in her mother and the governesses and servants then living in the house with her, not any in her father then not anything of such a feeling. And so she was completely of them then to them to all of them the children and the other people living in the small houses near the Hersland family ten acre living place then, she was completely then of their living then always even when the children or the others were conscious of the existing of Mr. or Mrs. Hersland or the governess or the servants living with them.
     At this time Martha was completely of the living of these people near her, of the children and the parents of them, then in her younger living. Later as I was saying there was the developing of feeling the natural future for her in her in them and in her father and a very little in her and always a little more and more in all of them. And then it came that she went away to another kind of living. This is now a little history of how they felt her when she was young, when she was a little older, every one who then came to know her. There will be then a little description of the transition to another kind of living that then came to her.
     When she was quite a young one, as I was saying, she was then quite completely of the living of the children and the people living near the Hersland family then when the Hersland family were living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living then.
     She was completely of their living then. She could have happen to her then what could happen to any of them in their living, in their schooling, in their playing, in their quarrelling, in their liking, in their disliking, in their being interesting one to the other of them.
     As I was saying Martha Hersland was not then very interesting to any of them, she was good enough at doing anything, they were friendly enough with her most of them, they did not most of them think vary well of the way she did quarrelling whenever she did any of that with any of them. One little boy wanted her to do loving the little boy who with his sister lived with the father who smoked to help his asthma but this was not very much of a success for Martha then had a nervous feeling and was not very daring and was not very understanding and had a confusion that was a little like wanting, a little like obstinate hesitation, a little like being afraid of everything, a little like a very stupid way of being, and the little boy then forgot about her being existing for really Martha was not then to any one very interesting. Martha was alright then but she was not interesting enough to be successful in quarrelling or in loving then, they all of them forgot her a little when she wanted to be quarrelling or they were quarrelling or they wanted to be loving or she wanted to be loving. Perhaps a very little it was that she was not quite entirely completely, altogether of them, perhaps it was that she was not then really interesting to any one. She was of them then so that she was living their living entirely then with them and they did begin with her then in loving or in quarrelling as they did with each other in their living then but as I was saying she was not interesting then, the being in her as I was saying when it was active was just knocking together in her and that made in her a little confusion and she was not stupid in ordinary living and she was not interesting and that was her younger living.
     When she was a little older she was still always with them the people near the Hersland family then in that part of Gossols where no rich people were living then. She was with them then living their kind of being, hearing them talking and knowing everything happening to them but not any of them then included her with them in quarrelling or loving, not even as making a beginning. The natural future for her was then separating them. She was still very much with them, with the girls she would help the mothers cooking or setting the table, she knew their daily living, she helped them in wiping the dishes when they were washing them, and was with them and always then she was not of them even as she had been to them when she was a younger one and she never knew it then and they never knew it then. She was not any more interesting then. Something happened to her then that made her now for a little time more than the whole one she was all her living to herself and perhaps a little to some who then and later knew her, it was really just a little accentuation of being put in motion and of that I will now give a very little description.
     No one knew very much what Martha was feeling about anything when she was in her young living. She was not ever telling very much of her feeling then to any one, and never to any one in the family living. Not any or the Hersland family ever were telling each other very much about what feeling they had in them. Martha was really not telling any one very much in her young living the feeling she had in her about anything and then in a way too it was not in her ready for telling. It had not form in her yet, feeling in her, there was really then no way for her to tell any one anything about her feeling.
     Now there will be a little more telling of the kind of a whole one she was, of the kind of nature there was in her. There will then be a little more telling of the moment in her when the movement of the being in her was a little faster, came to be almost violent emotion in her. There will then be a little telling of her living, what she was knowing, what she was feeling in her young living. There will be a little telling of how much she had heard about living and how much she had seen, how little and how much she knew then and what then happened in her when she saw something that really made all her being move together and faster than it had ever had motion before in her. There will be then a little telling of how much she had heard about anything in living, how much she had heard, and how little she knew and what she saw then and what she felt then when she saw something that I will now soon be telling. This is now a little description of how much she had heard and how little she knew and what she saw in her young living. There will then be a description of her seeing a man hitting a woman with an umbrella in another part of town from that in which the Herslands were living and of her consequent deciding to go to college and get that kind of education. To begin then.
     Martha as I was saying was of the independent dependent kind in men and women. Martha as I was saying had it in her to be of the kind of them that have attacking as their natural way of winning fighting. Martha as I was saying was of this kind of them. Martha as I was saying was mostly never really attacking. Martha as I was saying when her being was all of it in motion, and mostly when any of it was in motion it was all of it in motion and then it was mostly as pieces knocking together in confusion and in nervous being and not then into really attacking, sometimes it could happen but this was not very often, yes in a sense a very little of it was in her very often, but enough of it to really make an action was not in her very often, sometimes it could happen that there was a strong impulse and then there was a strong movement of her being of all the being that was Martha Hersland and always then it never really even then came to be really attacking, it just went off into very strong knocking together of pieces of the being in her, a livelier confusion inside her than just the ordinary confusion in her and that was all there was of attacking in her in the most active being ever in her.