Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .txt) đ
"May be indigo," Jeff suggested, with his lazy smile.
It was early yet; we had just breakfasted; and leaving wordthat we'd be back before night, we got away quietly, not wishingto be thought too gullible if we failed, and secretly hoping tohave some nice little discovery all to ourselves.
It was a long two hours, nearer three. I fancy the savage couldhave done it alone much quicker. There was a desperate tangleof wood and water and a swampy patch we never should havefound our way across alone. But there was one, and I could seeTerry, with compass and notebook, marking directions and tryingto place landmarks.
We came after a while to a sort of marshy lake, very big, sothat the circling forest looked quite low and dim across it. Ourguide told us that boats could go from there to our camp--but"long way--all day."
This water was somewhat clearer than that we had left, butwe could no
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âWeâll leave papers with our consul where the yacht stays,â Terry planned. âIf we donât come back inâsay a monthâthey can send a relief party after us.â
âA punitive expedition,â I urged. âIf the ladies do eat us we must make reprisals.â
âThey can locate that last stopping place easy enough, and Iâve made a sort of chart of that lake and cliff and waterfall.â
âYes, but how will they get up?â asked Jeff.
âSame way we do, of course. If three valuable American citizens are lost up there, they will follow somehowâto say nothing of the glittering attractions of that fair landâletâs call it `Feminisia,ââ he broke off.
âYouâre right, Terry. Once the story gets out, the river will crawl with expeditions and the airships rise like a swarm of mosquitoes.â I laughed as I thought of it. âWeâve made a great mistake not to let Mr. Yellow Press in on this. Save us! What headlines!â
âNot much!â said Terry grimly. âThis is our party. Weâre going to find that place alone.â
âWhat are you going to do with it when you do find itâif you do?â Jeff asked mildly.
Jeff was a tender soul. I think he thought that countryâif there was oneâwas just blossoming with roses and babies and canaries and tidies, and all that sort of thing.
And Terry, in his secret heart, had visions of a sort of sublimated summer resortâjust Girls and Girls and Girlsâand that he was going to beâwell, Terry was popular among women even when there were other men around, and itâs not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of what might happen. I could see it in his eyes as he lay there, looking at the long blue rollers slipping by, and fingering that impressive mustache of his.
But I thoughtâthenâthat I could form a far clearer idea of what was before us than either of them.
âYouâre all off, boys,â I insisted. âIf there is such a placeâand there does seem some foundation for believing itâyouâll find itâs built on a sort of matriarchal principle, thatâs all. The men have a separate cult of their own, less socially developed than the women, and make them an annual visitâa sort of wedding call. This is a condition known to have existedâhereâs just a survival. Theyâve got some peculiarly isolated valley or tableland up there, and their primeval customs have survived. Thatâs all there is to it.â
âHow about the boys?â Jeff asked.
âOh, the men take them away as soon as they are five or six, you see.â
âAnd how about this danger theory all our guides were so sure of?â
âDanger enough, Terry, and weâll have to be mighty careful. Women of that stage of culture are quite able to defend themselves and have no welcome for unseasonable visitors.â
We talked and talked.
And with all my airs of sociological superiority I was no nearer than any of them.
It was funny though, in the light of what we did find, those extremely clear ideas of ours as to what a country of women would be like. It was no use to tell ourselves and one another that all this was idle speculation. We were idle and we did speculate, on the ocean voyage and the river voyage, too.
âAdmitting the improbability,â weâd begin solemnly, and then launch out again.
âThey would fight among themselves,â Terry insisted. âWomen always do. We mustnât look to find any sort of order and organization.â
âYouâre dead wrong,â Jeff told him. âIt will be like a nunnery under an abbessâa peaceful, harmonious sisterhood.â
I snorted derision at this idea.
âNuns, indeed! Your peaceful sisterhoods were all celibate, Jeff, and under vows of obedience. These are just women, and mothers, and where thereâs motherhood you donât find sisterhoodânot much.â
âNo, sirâtheyâll scrap,â agreed Terry. âAlso we mustnât look for inventions and progress; itâll be awfully primitive.â
âHow about that cloth mill?â Jeff suggested.
âOh, cloth! Women have always been spinsters. But there they stopâyouâll see.â
We joked Terry about his modest impression that he would be warmly received, but he held his ground.
âYouâll see,â he insisted. âIâll get solid with them allâand play one bunch against another. Iâll get myself elected king in no timeâwhew! Solomon will have to take a back seat!â
âWhere do we come in on that deal?â I demanded. âArenât we Viziers or anything?â
âCouldnât risk it,â he asserted solemnly. âYou might start a revolutionâprobably would. No, youâll have to be beheaded, or bowstrungâor whatever the popular method of execution is.â
âYouâd have to do it yourself, remember,â grinned Jeff. âNo husky black slaves and mamelukes! And thereâd be two of us and only one of youâeh, Van?â
Jeffâs ideas and Terryâs were so far apart that sometimes it was all I could do to keep the peace between them. Jeff idealized women in the best Southern style. He was full of chivalry and sentiment, and all that. And he was a good boy; he lived up to his ideals.
You might say Terry did, too, if you can call his views about women anything so polite as ideals. I always liked Terry. He was a manâs man, very much so, generous and brave and clever; but I donât think any of us in college days was quite pleased to have him with our sisters. We werenât very stringent, heavens no! But Terry was âthe limit.â Later onâwhy, of course a manâs life is his own, we held, and asked no questions.
But barring a possible exception in favor of a not impossible wife, or of his mother, or, of course, the fair relatives of his friends, Terryâs idea seemed to be that pretty women were just so much game and homely ones not worth considering.
It was really unpleasant sometimes to see the notions he had.
But I got out of patience with Jeff, too. He had such rose-colored halos on his womenfolks. I held a middle ground, highly scientific, of course, and used to argue learnedly about the physiological limitations of the sex.
We were not in the least âadvancedâ on the woman question, any of us, then.
So we joked and disputed and speculated, and after an interminable journey, we got to our old camping place at last.
It was not hard to find the river, just poking along that side till we came to it, and it was navigable as far as the lake.
When we reached that and slid out on its broad glistening bosom, with that high gray promontory running out toward us, and the straight white fall clearly visible, it began to be really exciting.
There was some talk, even then, of skirting the rock wall and seeking a possible footway up, but the marshy jungle made that method look not only difficult but dangerous.
Terry dismissed the plan sharply.
âNonsense, fellows! Weâve decided that. It might take monthsâwe havenât got the provisions. No, sirâweâve got to take our chances. If we get back safeâall right. If we donât, why, weâre not the first explorers to get lost in the shuffle. There are plenty to come after us.â
So we got the big biplane together and loaded it with our scientifically compressed baggage: the camera, of course; the glasses; a supply of concentrated food. Our pockets were magazines of small necessities, and we had our guns, of courseâ there was no knowing what might happen.
Up and up and up we sailed, way up at first, to get âthe lay of the landâ and make note of it.
Out of that dark green sea of crowding forest this high-standing spur rose steeply. It ran back on either side, apparently, to the far-off white-crowned peaks in the distance, themselves probably inaccessible.
âLetâs make the first trip geographical,â I suggested. âSpy out the land, and drop back here for more gasoline. With your tremendous speed we can reach that range and back all right. Then we can leave a sort of map on boardâ for that relief expedition.â
âThereâs sense in that,â Terry agreed. âIâll put off being king of Ladyland for one more day.â
So we made a long skirting voyage, turned the point of the cape which was close by, ran up one side of the triangle at our best speed, crossed over the base where it left the higher mountains, and so back to our lake by moonlight.
âThatâs not a bad little kingdom,â we agreed when it was roughly drawn and measured. We could tell the size fairly by our speed. And from what we could see of the sidesâand that icy ridge at the back endââItâs a pretty enterprising savage who would manage to get into it,â Jeff said.
Of course we had looked at the land itselfâeagerly, but we were too high and going too fast to see much. It appeared to be well forested about the edges, but in the interior there were wide plains, and everywhere parklike meadows and open places.
There were cities, too; that I insisted. It lookedâwell, it looked like any other countryâa civilized one, I mean.
We had to sleep after that long sweep through the air, but we turned out early enough next day, and again we rose softly up the height till we could top the crowning trees and see the broad fair land at our pleasure.
âSemitropical. Looks like a first-rate climate. Itâs wonderful what a little height will do for temperature.â Terry was studying the forest growth.
âLittle height! Is that what you call little?â I asked. Our instruments measured it clearly. We had not realized the long gentle rise from the coast perhaps.
âMighty lucky piece of land, I call it,â Terry pursued. âNow for the folksâIâve had enough scenery.â
So we sailed low, crossing back and forth, quartering the country as we went, and studying it. We sawâI canât remember now how much of this we noted then and how much was supplemented by our later knowledge, but we could not help seeing this much, even on that excited dayâa land in a state of perfect cultivation, where even the forests looked as if they were cared for; a land that looked like an enormous park, only it was even more evidently an enormous garden.
âI donât see any cattle,â I suggested, but Terry was silent. We were approaching a village.
I confess that we paid small attention to the clean, well-built roads, to the attractive architecture, to the ordered beauty of the little town. We had our glasses out; even Terry, setting his machine for a spiral glide, clapped the binoculars to his eyes.
They heard our whirring screw. They ran out of the houses âthey gathered in from the fields, swift-running light figures, crowds of them. We stared and stared until it was almost too late to catch the levers, sweep off and rise again; and then we held our peace for a long run upward
âGosh!â said Terry, after a while.
âOnly women thereâand children,â Jeff urged excitedly.
âBut they lookâwhy, this is a CIVILIZED country!â I protested. âThere must be men.â
âOf course there are men,â said Terry. âCome on, letâs find âem.â
He refused to listen to Jeffâs suggestion that we examine the country further before we risked leaving our machine.
âThereâs a fine landing place right there where we came over,â he insisted, and it was an excellent oneâa wide, flattopped rock, overlooking the lake, and quite out of sight from the interior.
âThey wonât find this in a hurry,â he asserted, as we scrambled with the utmost difficulty down to safer footing. âCome on, boysâ there were some good lookers in that bunch.â
Of course it was unwise of us.
It was quite easy to see afterward that our best plan was to have
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