Part 13 (1/2)

Here was Mother Earth, bearing fruit. All that they ate was fruit of motherhood, from seed or egg or their product. By motherhood they were born and by motherhood they lived--life was, to them, just the long cycle of motherhood.

But very early they recognized the need of improvement as well as of mere repet.i.tion, and devoted their combined intelligence to that problem--how to make the best kind of people. First this was merely the hope of bearing better ones, and then they recognized that however the children differed at birth, the real growth lay later--through education.

Then things began to hum.

As I learned more and more to appreciate what these women had accomplished, the less proud I was of what we, with all our manhood, had done.

You see, they had had no wars. They had had no kings, and no priests, and no aristocracies. They were sisters, and as they grew, they grew together--not by compet.i.tion, but by united action.

We tried to put in a good word for compet.i.tion, and they were keenly interested. Indeed, we soon found from their earnest questions of us that they were prepared to believe our world must be better than theirs.

They were not sure; they wanted to know; but there was no such arrogance about them as might have been expected.

We rather spread ourselves, telling of the advantages of compet.i.tion: how it developed fine qualities; that without it there would be ”no stimulus to industry.” Terry was very strong on that point.

”No stimulus to industry,” they repeated, with that puzzled look we had learned to know so well. ”STIMULUS? TO INDUSTRY? But don't you LIKE to work?”

”No man would work unless he had to,” Terry declared.

”Oh, no MAN! You mean that is one of your s.e.x distinctions?”

”No, indeed!” he said hastily. ”No one, I mean, man or woman, would work without incentive. Compet.i.tion is the--the motor power, you see.”

”It is not with us,” they explained gently, ”so it is hard for us to understand. Do you mean, for instance, that with you no mother would work for her children without the stimulus of compet.i.tion?”

No, he admitted that he did not mean that. Mothers, he supposed, would of course work for their children in the home; but the world's work was different--that had to be done by men, and required the compet.i.tive element.

All our teachers were eagerly interested.

”We want so much to know--you have the whole world to tell us of, and we have only our little land! And there are two of you--the two s.e.xes--to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world. Tell us--what is the work of the world, that men do--which we have not here?”

”Oh, everything,” Terry said grandly. ”The men do everything, with us.”

He squared his broad shoulders and lifted his chest. ”We do not allow our women to work. Women are loved--idolized--honored--kept in the home to care for the children.”

”What is 'the home'?” asked Somel a little wistfully.

But Zava begged: ”Tell me first, do NO women work, really?”

”Why, yes,” Terry admitted. ”Some have to, of the poorer sort.”

”About how many--in your country?”

”About seven or eight million,” said Jeff, as mischievous as ever.

CHAPTER 6. Comparisons Are Odious

I had always been proud of my country, of course. Everyone is. Compared with the other lands and other races I knew, the United States of America had always seemed to me, speaking modestly, as good as the best of them.