I was in a very bad temper by this time, it was disagreeable enough to have this—or any other part of it, true; but what I could not stand was to see that big hearted man speak of it in such a cheerful matter-of-fact way.
“Have the men of today no pride?” I asked. “How can you stand it—being treated as inferiors—by women?”
“Women stood it for ten thousand years,” he answered, “being treated as inferiors—by men.”
We went home in silence.
IX
I learned to understand the immense material prosperity of the country much more easily than its social progress.
The exquisite agriculture which made millions of acres from raw farms and ranches into rich gardens, the forestry which had changed our straggling woodlands into great tree farms, yielding their steady crops of cut boughs, thinned underbrush, and full-grown trunks, those endless orchard roads, with their processions of workers making continual excursions in their special cars, keeping roadway and bordering trees in perfect order—all this one could see.
There were, of course, far more of the wilder, narrower roads, perfect as the roadbed, but not parked, with all untrimmed nature to travel through.
The airships did make a difference. To look down on the flowing, outspread miles beneath gave a sense of the unity and continuous beauty of our country, quite different from the streak views we used to get. An airship is a moving mountaintop.
The cities were even more strikingly beautiful, in that the change was greater, the contrast sharper. I never tired of wandering about on foot along the streets of cities, and I visited several, finding, as Nellie said, that it took no longer to improve twenty than one; the people in each could do it as soon as they chose to.
But what made them choose? What had got into the people? That was what puzzled me most. It did not show outside, like the country changes, and the rebuilt cities; the people did not look remarkable, though they were different, too. I watched and studied them, trying to analyze the changes that could be seen. Most visible was cleanliness, comfort, and beauty in dress.
I had never dreamed of the relief to the spectator in not seeing any poverty. We were used to it, of course; we had our excuses, religious and economic, we even found, or thought we found, artistic pleasure in this social disease. But now I realized what a nightmare it had been—the sights, the sounds, the smells of poverty—merely to an outside observer.
These people had good bodies, too. They were not equally beautiful, by any means; thirty years, of course, could not wholly return to the normal a race long stunted and overworked. But in the difference in the young generation I could see at a glance the world’s best hope, that the “long inheritance” is far deeper than the short.
Those of about twenty and under, those who were born after some of these changes had been made, were like another race. Big, sturdy, blooming creatures, boys and girls alike, swift and graceful, eager, happy, courteous—I supposed at first that these were the children of exceptionally placed people; but soon found, with a heart-stirring sort of shock, that all the children were like that.
Some of the old folk still carried the scars of earlier conditions, but the children were new people.
Then of my own accord I demanded reasons. Nellie laughed sweetly.
“I’m so glad you’ve come to your appetite,” she said. “I’ve been longing to talk to you about that, and you were always bored.”
“It’s a good deal of a dose, Nell; you’ll admit that. And one hates to be forcibly fed. But now I do want to get an outline, a sort of general idea, of what you do with children. Can you condense a little recent history, and make it easy to an aged stranger?”
“Aged! You are growing younger every day, John. I believe that comparatively brainless life you led in Tibet was good for you. That was all new impression on the brain; the first part rested. Now you are beginning where you left off. I wish you would recognize that.”
I shook my head. “Never mind me, I’m trying not to think of my chopped-off life; but tell me how you manufacture this kind of people.”
My sister sat still, thinking, for a little. “I want to avoid repetition if possible—tell me just how much you have in mind already.” But I refused to be catechised.
“You put it all together, straight; I want to get the whole of it—as well as I can.”
“All right. On your head be it. Let me see—first—Oh, there isn’t any first, John! We were doing ever so much for children before you left—before you and I were born! It is the vision of all the great child-lovers; that children are people, and the most valuable people on earth. The most important thing to a child is its mother. We made new mothers for them—I guess that is ‘first.’
“Suppose we begin this way:
“a. Free, healthy, independent, intelligent mothers.
“b. Enough to live on—right conditions for child-raising.
“c. Specialized care.
“d. The new social consciousness, with its religion, its art, its science, its civics, its industry, its wealth, its brilliant efficiency. That’s your outline.”
I set down these points in my notebook.
“An excellent outline, Nellie. Now for details on ‘a.’ I will set my teeth till that’s over.”
My sister regarded me with amused tenderness. “How you do hate the new women, John—in the abstract! I haven’t seen you averse to any of them in the concrete!”
At the time I refused to admit any importance to this remark, but I thought it over later—and to good purpose. It was true. I did hate the new kind of human being who loomed so large in every line of progress. She jarred on every age—old masculine prejudice—she was not what woman used to be.
