it, thinking, “Mother is going to kill me.” Then I got up, pinned back what was left, and started to go home. I slipped in the back door and fled down the hall to the room I shared with Jac. When she came in later I buried my head in the pillow and pretended to be asleep.
The next morning I asked her to bring me the paper, planning to hide behind it and for a few minutes forestall the inevitable. I had hardly assumed a reading pose when I heard Mother coming down the hall. She threw open the door, stormed into the room, and snatched the paper out of my hands. Pointing to my head, she shouted, “I know!”
My little brother had seen me slinking home the night before and had made an announcement at breakfast. The upshot was that I was told to stay in the house until my hair grew long again. Such an order was out of the question, of course, and had to be rescinded, but for a long time Mother never looked at my shorn head without a disapproving and tormented sigh.
I took pride in my achievement and clung stubbornly to my bobbed hair. The fact was I liked it short. But in Durham I found myself with lengthening hair. Dr. Carver accomplished this by uncanny means. He said one day that he was pleased to see I was keeping my promise and letting my hair grow. I could not remember such a promise and I told him so. “Of course you did,” he said firmly. So, on the basis of a statement that had no foundation in fact and certainly none in logic, Dr. Carver succeeded where my mother had failed.
Having won the victory with regard to my hair, he started in on my clothes. Women’s dresses were beginning to creep up about that time and had reached a point three inches beneath the kneecap. This was shocking to Dr. Carver, who insisted that a “lady” never let her knees show, so whenever I went to buy a dress he came with me to make certain I got it long enough. If it didn’t meet his standards he had it let down, and I ended up wearing hems about three or four inches longer than was fashionable.
On occasion I felt the old upward surge of defiance that was as much a part of me as my hands and feet, but I squashed it by asking myself, “What difference does it make? If it makes him happy, let him have his way.”
My moments of antagonism were further salved by the fact that at least he was consistent. He was as strict with himself as he was with me and as conservative in his tastes. How it had happened that the flamboyant days of his youth had given way to such conservatism, I do not know. All I know is that his former love for the spectacular in clothing was now confined to a love for red, which he exhibited only in his ties.
However, he liked good clothes and paid a lot for them and took care of everything but his hats. These he sat on, crushed, abused, and, what was worse, wore no matter how they looked. He had only one for which he showed any reverence, though I never found out why. It was a white panama which he saved for special occasions.
In addition to conservative habits in dress, he never smoked or drank. In fact, he had never done either, even back in the old days, when to set a saloon door swinging was the hallmark of manhood. This was such a novelty that in time he became famous for his abstinence, and once when he was in St. Louis giving a shooting exhibition a group of women from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union appeared and asked him to give public testimony to the fact that the reason he was so big and strong was that he never drank.
Dr. Carver refused. “I don’t know that’s why,” he said. “Look at Buffalo Bill. He’s just as big and strong and healthy as I am and he hasn’t drawn a sober breath since I’ve known him. And that’s been a long, long time.”
His only vice was mild profanity. Life on the plains hadn’t been designed to promote delicate speech, and his was not. The words were never foul, merely vigorous and forceful. They were also usually forgivable because he never
The next morning I asked her to bring me the paper, planning to hide behind it and for a few minutes forestall the inevitable. I had hardly assumed a reading pose when I heard Mother coming down the hall. She threw open the door, stormed into the room, and snatched the paper out of my hands. Pointing to my head, she shouted, “I know!”
My little brother had seen me slinking home the night before and had made an announcement at breakfast. The upshot was that I was told to stay in the house until my hair grew long again. Such an order was out of the question, of course, and had to be rescinded, but for a long time Mother never looked at my shorn head without a disapproving and tormented sigh.
I took pride in my achievement and clung stubbornly to my bobbed hair. The fact was I liked it short. But in Durham I found myself with lengthening hair. Dr. Carver accomplished this by uncanny means. He said one day that he was pleased to see I was keeping my promise and letting my hair grow. I could not remember such a promise and I told him so. “Of course you did,” he said firmly. So, on the basis of a statement that had no foundation in fact and certainly none in logic, Dr. Carver succeeded where my mother had failed.
Having won the victory with regard to my hair, he started in on my clothes. Women’s dresses were beginning to creep up about that time and had reached a point three inches beneath the kneecap. This was shocking to Dr. Carver, who insisted that a “lady” never let her knees show, so whenever I went to buy a dress he came with me to make certain I got it long enough. If it didn’t meet his standards he had it let down, and I ended up wearing hems about three or four inches longer than was fashionable.
On occasion I felt the old upward surge of defiance that was as much a part of me as my hands and feet, but I squashed it by asking myself, “What difference does it make? If it makes him happy, let him have his way.”
My moments of antagonism were further salved by the fact that at least he was consistent. He was as strict with himself as he was with me and as conservative in his tastes. How it had happened that the flamboyant days of his youth had given way to such conservatism, I do not know. All I know is that his former love for the spectacular in clothing was now confined to a love for red, which he exhibited only in his ties.
However, he liked good clothes and paid a lot for them and took care of everything but his hats. These he sat on, crushed, abused, and, what was worse, wore no matter how they looked. He had only one for which he showed any reverence, though I never found out why. It was a white panama which he saved for special occasions.
In addition to conservative habits in dress, he never smoked or drank. In fact, he had never done either, even back in the old days, when to set a saloon door swinging was the hallmark of manhood. This was such a novelty that in time he became famous for his abstinence, and once when he was in St. Louis giving a shooting exhibition a group of women from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union appeared and asked him to give public testimony to the fact that the reason he was so big and strong was that he never drank.
Dr. Carver refused. “I don’t know that’s why,” he said. “Look at Buffalo Bill. He’s just as big and strong and healthy as I am and he hasn’t drawn a sober breath since I’ve known him. And that’s been a long, long time.”
His only vice was mild profanity. Life on the plains hadn’t been designed to promote delicate speech, and his was not. The words were never foul, merely vigorous and forceful. They were also usually forgivable because he never
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