Part 3 (2/2)
Such talks as these brought mother and daughter into such close companions.h.i.+p that Helen was not afraid to bring her mother the deepest problems of her young life.
It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and mother and daughter were sitting together sewing. The rain was pouring, so that there was little fear of visitors, and while Mrs. Wayne was discussing with herself how she could begin to talk to her daughter of her approaching womanhood, Helen suddenly said, ”Mother, what is the matter with Clara Downs? She is going into consumption, they say, and I heard Sadie Barker say to Cora Lee that it was because Clara did not change into a woman. What did she mean? I thought we just grew into women. Isn't that the way?”
”You didn't ask Sadie what she meant?”
”O, no, the girls acted as if they didn't want me to hear, and then, I'd always rather you'd tell me things, for then I feel sure that I know them right.”
This little testimony of her trust in her mother furnished Mrs. Wayne with the desired opportunity, and she said, ”In order that you may clearly understand Sadie's remark I shall have to make a long explanation of how girls become women.”
”Why, mother, don't we just grow into women?”
”Well, my dear, I shall have to say both yes and no to that question.
Girls do grow and become women, but women are something more than grown-up girls. This house is much bigger than it was two years ago. Did it just grow bigger?”
”Why, no, not exactly. There are no more rooms now than there were before, but some rooms have been finished off and are used now, when before they weren't used at all, and so the house seems bigger. But it can't be that way with our bodies, for we don't have any new organs added or finished off to make us women?”
”That is just what is done, my daughter.”
”What! New organs added, mother? What can you mean?”
”I mean, dear, that your bodily dwelling is enlarged, not by the addition of new rooms, but by the completing of rooms that have as yet not been fitted up for use.”
”I don't understand you, mother.”
”I suppose not, but I hope to be able to make you understand. You have studied your bodily house and know of the rooms in the different stories, the kitchen, laundry, dining-room, picture-gallery and telegraph office,--in fact, all the rooms or organs that keep you alive; but there is one part of the house that you have not studied. There are various rooms or organs which are not needed to keep you alive, and which have, therefore, been closed. As you approach womanhood, these organs will wake up and become active, and their activity is what will make you a woman.”
”Why, mother, it sounds like a fairy story, a tale of a wonderful magic palace, doesn't it? And Clara Downs hasn't got these marvelous rooms?”
”Yes, they are there, but they are evidently not being finished off for use. I think, however, the girls made the mistake of confounding cause and effect. They say she is going into consumption because she does not become a woman. I think she does not become a woman because she is going into consumption. Do you know why we did not finish off these rooms in our house sooner?”
”Why, father said he had not the money.”
”That is right. He did not say that he did not have the money because he did not finish off the rooms.”
”My, no, that would have been absurd; but I don't see how that applies to Clara?”
”It needed money to finish off our house; so it needs vitality to change from girl to woman, and Clara seems not to have the vitality. She is failing in health, hence she has not vital force to spend in completing her physical development.”
”But, mother, tell me more about this wonderful change. Where are the new rooms and what is their purpose? I can't really believe that I have some bodily organs that I never heard of. What are they and where are they; when will they be finished off? I am all curiosity. Didn't we study about them in our school physiology?”
”You have given me a good many questions to answer, little girl, and I hardly know where to begin answering them.
”In your school physiology you studied all about the organs that keep you alive. What did you learn about your bodily house? How many stories is it?”
”Three stories high, and then there is a cupola on the top of all. I like to think of the head as a cupola or observatory, resting on the tower of the neck and turning from side to side as we want to look around us.”
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