Herland
women.”
What she said about our importance gave instant pleasure to Terry. I
could see by the way he lifted his head that it pleased him. But when
she spoke of our women--someway I had a queer little indescribable
feeling, not like any feeling I ever had before when “women” were
mentioned.
“Will you tell us how it came about?” Jeff pursued. “You said ‘for two
thousand years’--did you have men here before that?”
“Yes,” answered Zava.
They were all quiet for a little.
“You should have our full history to read--do not be alarmed--it has
been made clear and short. It took us a long time to learn how to write
history. Oh, how I should love to read yours!”
She turned with flashing eager eyes, looking from one to the other of
us.
“It would be so wonderful--would it not? To compare the history of two
thousand years, to see what the differences are--between us, who are
only mothers, and you, who are mothers and fathers, too. Of course we
see, with our birds, that the father is as useful as the mother, almost.
But among insects we find him of less importance, sometimes very little.
Is it not so with you?”
“Oh, yes, birds and bugs,” Terry said, “but not among animals--have you
_no_ animals?”
“We have cats,” she said. “The father is not very useful.”
“Have you no cattle--sheep--horses?” I drew some rough outlines of these
beasts and showed them to her.
“We had, in the very old days, these,” said Somel, and sketched with
swift sure touches a sort of sheep or llama, “and these”--dogs, of two
or three kinds, “that that”--pointing to my absurd but recognizable
horse.
“What became of them?” asked Jeff.
“We do not want them anymore. They took up too much room--we need all
our land to feed our people. It is such a little country, you know.”
“Whatever do you do without milk?” Terry demanded incredulously.
“_Milk?_ We have milk in abundance--our own.”
“But--but--I mean for cooking--for grown people,” Terry blundered, while
they looked amazed and a shade displeased.
Jeff came to the rescue. “We keep cattle for their milk, as well as
for their meat,” he explained. “Cow’s milk is a staple article of diet.
There is a great milk industry--to collect and distribute it.”
Still they looked puzzled. I pointed to my outline of a cow. “The farmer
milks the cow,” I said, and sketched a milk pail, the stool, and in
pantomime showed the man milking. “Then it is carried to the city and
distributed by milkmen--everybody has it at the door in the morning.”
“Has the cow no child?” asked Somel earnestly.
“Oh, yes, of course, a calf, that is.”
“Is there milk for the calf and you, too?”
It took some time to make clear to those three sweet-faced women the
process which robs the cow of her calf, and the calf of its true food;
and the talk led us into a further discussion of the meat business. They
heard it out, looking very white, and presently begged to be excused.
CHAPTER 5.
A Unique History
It is no use for me to try to piece out this account with adventures.
If the people who read it are not interested in these amazing women and
their history, they will not be interested at all.
As for us--three young men to a whole landful of women--what could we
do? We did get away, as described, and were peacefully brought back
again without, as Terry complained, even the satisfaction of hitting
anybody.
There were no adventures because there was nothing to fight. There were
no wild beasts in the country and very few tame ones. Of these I might
as well stop to describe the one common pet of the country. Cats, of
course. But such cats!
What do you suppose these Lady Burbanks had done with their cats? By the
most prolonged and careful selection and exclusion they had developed a
race of cats that did not sing! That’s a fact. The most those poor dumb
brutes could do was to make a kind of squeak when they were hungry or
wanted the door open, and, of course, to purr, and make the various
mother-noises to their kittens.
Moreover, they had ceased to kill birds. They were rigorously bred to
destroy mice and moles and all such enemies of the food supply; but the
birds were numerous and safe.
While we were discussing birds, Terry asked them if they used feathers
for their hats, and they seemed amused at the idea. He made a few
sketches of our women’s hats, with plumes and quills and those various
tickling things that stick out so far; and they were eagerly interested,
as at everything about our women.
As for them, they said they only wore hats for shade when working in the
sun; and those were big light straw hats, something like those used in
China and Japan. In cold weather they wore caps or hoods.
“But for decorative purposes--don’t you think they would be becoming?”
pursued Terry, making as pretty a picture as he could of a lady with a
plumed hat.
They by no means agreed to that, asking quite simply if the men wore the
same kind. We hastened to assure her that they did not--drew for them
our kind of headgear.
“And do no men wear feathers in their hats?”
“Only Indians,” Jeff explained. “Savages, you know.” And he sketched a
war bonnet to show them.
“And soldiers,” I added, drawing a military hat with plumes.
They never expressed horror or disapproval, nor indeed much
surprise--just a keen interest. And the notes they made!--miles of them!
But to return to our pussycats. We were a good deal impressed by this
achievement in breeding, and when they questioned us--I can tell you we
were well pumped for information--we told of what had been done for dogs
and horses and cattle, but that there was no effort applied to cats,
except for show purposes.
I wish I could represent the kind, quiet, steady, ingenious way they
questioned us. It was not just curiosity--they weren’t a bit more
curious about us than we were about them, if as much. But they were
bent on understanding our kind of civilization, and their lines of
interrogation would gradually surround us and drive us in till we found
ourselves up against some admissions we did not want to make.
“Are all these breeds of dogs you have made useful?” they asked.
“Oh--useful! Why, the hunting dogs and watchdogs and sheepdogs are
useful--and sleddogs of course!--and ratters, I suppose, but we don’t
keep dogs for their _usefulness_. The dog is ‘the friend of man,’ we
say--we love them.”
That they understood. “We love our cats that way. They surely are our
friends, and helpers, too. You can see how intelligent and affectionate
they are.”
It was a fact. I’d never seen such cats, except in a few rare instances.
Big, handsome silky things, friendly with everyone and devotedly
attached to their special owners.
“You must have a heartbreaking time drowning kittens,” we suggested. But
they said, “Oh, no! You see we care for them as you do for your valuable
cattle. The fathers are few compared to the mothers, just a few very
fine ones in each town; they live quite happily in walled gardens and
the houses of their friends. But they only have a mating season once a
year.”
“Rather hard on Thomas, isn’t it?” suggested Terry.
“Oh, no--truly! You see, it is many centuries that we have been breeding
the kind of cats we wanted. They are healthy and happy and friendly, as
you see. How do you manage with your dogs? Do you keep them in pairs, or
segregate the fathers, or what?”
Then we explained that--well, that it wasn’t a question of fathers
exactly; that nobody wanted a--a mother dog; that, well, that
practically all our dogs were males--there was only a very small
percentage of females allowed to live.
Then Zava, observing Terry with her grave sweet smile, quoted back at
him: “Rather hard on Thomas, isn’t it? Do they enjoy it--living without
mates? Are your dogs as uniformly healthy and sweet-tempered as our
cats?”
Jeff laughed, eyeing Terry mischievously. As a matter of fact we began
to feel Jeff something of a traitor--he so often flopped over and took
their side of things; also his medical knowledge gave him a different
point of view somehow.
“I’m sorry to admit,” he told them, “that the dog, with us, is the most
diseased of any animal--next to man. And as to temper--there are always
some dogs who bite people--especially children.”
That was pure malice. You see, children were the--the _raison d’être_
in this country. All our interlocutors sat up straight at once. They
were still gentle, still restrained, but there was a note of deep
amazement in their voices.
“Do we understand that you keep an animal--an unmated male animal--that
bites children? About how many are there of them, please?”
“Thousands--in a large city,” said Jeff, “and nearly every family has
one in the country.”
Terry broke in at this. “You must not imagine they are all
dangerous--it’s not one in a hundred that ever bites anybody. Why, they
are the best friends of the children--a boy doesn’t have half a chance
that hasn’t a dog to play with!”
“And the girls?” asked Somel.
“Oh--girls--why they like them too,” he said, but his voice flatted a
little. They always noticed little things like that, we found later.
Little by little they wrung from us the fact that the friend of man,
in the city, was a prisoner; was taken out for his meager exercise on
a leash; was liable not only to many diseases but to the one destroying
horror of rabies; and, in many cases, for the safety of the citizens,
had to go muzzled. Jeff maliciously added vivid instances he had known
or read of injury and death from mad dogs.
They did not scold or fuss about it. Calm as judges, those women were.
But they made notes; Moadine read them to us.
“Please tell me if I have the facts correct,” she said. “In your
country--and in others too?”
“Yes,” we admitted, “in most civilized countries.”
“In most civilized countries a kind of animal is kept which is no longer
useful--”
“They are a protection,” Terry insisted. “They bark if burglars try to
get in.”
Then she made notes of “burglars” and went on: “because of the love
which people bear to this animal.”
Zava interrupted here. “Is it the men or the women who love this animal
so much?”
“Both!” insisted Terry.
“Equally?” she inquired.
And Jeff said, “Nonsense, Terry--you know men like dogs better than
women do--as a whole.”
“Because they love it so much--especially men. This animal is kept shut
up, or chained.”
“Why?” suddenly asked Somel. “We keep our father cats shut up because
we do not want too much fathering; but they are not chained--they have
large grounds to run in.”
“A valuable dog would be stolen if he was let loose,” I said. “We put
collars on them, with the owner’s name, in case they do stray. Besides,
they get into fights--a valuable dog might easily be killed by a bigger
one.”
“I see,” she said. “They fight when they meet--is that common?” We
admitted that it was.
“They are kept shut up, or chained.” She paused again, and asked,
“Is not a dog fond of running? Are they not built for speed?” That we
admitted, too, and Jeff, still malicious, enlightened them further.
“I’ve always thought it was a pathetic sight, both ways--to see a man or
a woman taking a dog to walk--at the end of a string.”
“Have you bred them to be as neat in their habits as cats are?” was the
next question. And when Jeff told them of the effect of dogs on sidewalk
merchandise and the streets generally, they found it hard to believe.
You see, their country was as neat as a Dutch kitchen, and as to
sanitation--but I might as well start in now with as much as I
can remember of the history of this amazing country before further
description.
And I’ll summarize here a bit as to our opportunities for learning it.
I will not try to repeat the careful, detailed account I lost; I’ll just